Modern Day Demon
by CheykoBlack
Summary: Thousands of years ago, following the end of Inuyasha and Kagome's story, demons were eradicated from Japan and the rest of the world. Now, in modern day United States the reincarnated Rin is about to be thrust into a past that until now only haunted her in fragments in her nightmares.
1. Chapter 1

The same face is haunting her behind closed eyes again. The dark golden eyes burrowing into her very soul, making her feel both safe and naked and judged under the thick gaze. His face is beautiful, like a woman's, with a very subtle undertone of heavy strength only capable of being exuded by a secure man. His gaze is powerful, protective, and an underlying sense of harshness always chokes her out of the dark blanket of her sleep, leaving her panting and gasping for air in the determined silence of her bedroom. It is always the same thing, night after insufferable night. The unnamed man, with a face she feels frustrated at not being able to name an unnerving sense of 'tip of the tongue' syndrome so thick it mentally nauseates her, staring at her… furious and hurt all in one whitewashed and raw sensation.

The alarm is a harsh sound that beats against her senses as it rings out in the darkness somewhere to the right of her bedside. Numbly, still desperate for her mind and stomach to settle from the dreams she has long grown accustomed to defining as nightmares, she drops her right hand onto the 'off' button at the top of her digital alarm clock and it silences as if having fallen to its death under her paws. The sensation, and mental image, sends strange shivers down her spine, and with a single shudder she finally pushes herself completely into wakefulness as her eyes refocus themselves in the dark.

With a quick and delicate swiftness she finds herself flipping the light switch next to her door and can almost feel the sudden bathe of florescent light chase the darkness from her room completely. With a few struggled blinks and wiping of her eyes she finds herself standing in front of her dresser, staring blankly into the mirror nailed unceremoniously into the wall above the helpful piece of furniture. She blinks once, then twice, watching emotionlessly at the face that repeats her movements back towards her as a small smile pushes onto her lips. Her hair is shoulder length, messy from sleep this early in the morning. She wears a dark orange linen night gown with peach colored squares crisscrossing the body in a checkered pattern. With a struggled and slow movement she rubs her right hand down her face and yawns, shaking away the final thoughts of the nightmare as she begins to dress for the day's affairs.

* * *

The apartment she lives in is roused suddenly as she flips the television on, the default channel blinking to life with the bright image of a young man standing in front of a map of the United States covered in temperatures and colors. She watches for a moment as the weatherman stops over her location, announces a 12 percent chance of precipitation, and then turns back towards the kitchen as she pours herself a bowl of cereal. Casually, while splitting her attention between the television and her plans for the day, she eats her all-too-sweet children's cereal dry. She never had enjoyed milk, made the cereal too soggy for her liking.

She glances at the analog clock hanging on the wall above where the kitchen bar connects as she turns to the sink to wash away her finished breakfast before leaving the single dish in the drying rack on the counter next to the sink. Her kitchen, like the rest of her small one bedroom apartment, is immaculately clean to an almost unnatural standard. Her three person black leather couch facing the television that is easily seen from the kitchen bar, a kitchen bar with only a single high-seated wooden chair. The kitchen sink itself lies in the marble counter top next along the wall perpendicular to the bar, a large window covered with pale cream curtains situated in the wall just above the sink so that one can gaze out into the apartment complex's rather large courtyard while they do dishes. A hobby she can honestly say she enjoys, and may contribute to the obsessive cleanliness of the home. It isn't that she refuses to let it get dirty, she just can't imagine having so much to clean that it wouldn't be possible to keep up with.

She sighs softly to herself as she turns to look around the rest of her apartment, the entire bottom floor visible from her place next to the sink in the kitchen. After all, she was entirely alone here… just her, and as far as she was concerned she was quiet happy with that. For a brief moment, as she takes it the wordless humming of the television set, she remembers the male's face in her dream and something deep within her, something foreign and incomprehensible, aches, but only for a moment. Without allowing herself to spare another moment's thought towards that dream she leaves the kitchen and heads up the stairs which lead to her bedroom and bathroom. She will quickly brush her teeth before heading out for the day, and hopefully if things go as planned she won't be back here until it's long past time to sleep. Again, the thought of the man from her dream crosses the subconscious awareness of her mind, and once again she ignores it to the best of her ability

* * *

Everyone is dead now. He doesn't know how it happened, nor does he care to figure it out well enough to understand. He refuses to understand, understanding would only make the numb emotion he feels now explode over into something dangerous. They came in waves, wielding objects that exploded into fire that blistered their bodies and left holes seared through flesh that refused to bleed. They smelled like humans, humans caked in blood, feces, sweet, and ash. They fought while screaming words no one could comprehend, and he had felt fear as he watched his kind dropping around him to the exploding fire he had never witnessed before. He hadn't known at the time that what he felt was fear, but he had seen his face reflected in her eyes… and upon his face he had seen the same expression caked on many he himself had killed. The thought of her assaults him again, piercing through the otherwise hellish existence of his eternal slumber. Hellish not for any actual suffering on his part, but for the ceaseless silence that has mindlessly bled centuries together, leaving nothing for him to experience except for those final hours. They arrived by boats and spilled out like cursed seed upon his lands. He watched his land burn, his armies fall, his… he couldn't allow his mind to form Her name. The pain of it even flirting with his subconscious caused him to want to scream out, an action his body was no longer capable of making, wherever his body was.

Slowly he drifts back into completely silence, letting the nothingness of his pitiful existence swallow him entirely. Oh how badly he wished to have been granted a death along with the rest of them, but no, that would never be granted him. They had called him a 'devil', he had incorporated that word into his mental vocabulary as they swarmed him and forced him to his knees. A monster, a 'devil', a 'demon'. They had torn at his proud youkai flesh, drawn blood just to confirm to themselves that he could indeed be killed, and had forced him into a position where he could no longer fight as they surrounded him and screamed hectic madness towards him. He had clung to Her, his mind screams at him, and they had parted as an older man in strange black robes with a high white collar had stepped towards him with a book in one hand and a strange fashioned decorative stick in the other. He was chanting, eyes closed, refusing to give him the last pleasure of seeing his murderer's eyes, and the world spun around him before going black. He had been in blackness since, and now he drifts off into the void once again.

* * *

"Why 're we doin' this again?" The dark skinned boy drawls on, obviously aggravated as he struggles to convince the mule to walk on along the dirt path.

"Because boss told us ta." An older dark skinned male walks next to him, holding various all-too-heavy looking bags filled to burst. "B'sides, whuts it matter to ya?"

The young boy just huffs grumpily, freedom was just as shitty as slavery as long as the white men kept pushing them around like this… not that he'd ever have the actual knowledge to compare the two, seeing as how he was never actually enslaved like his older traveling companion who had to be pushing fifty at this point in his life and yet was still able to stand as tall and proud as the twenty-something's they kept coming across. He also knew better than to complain about the current situation in life in front of this old man, he'd wait until he was safely tucked away in a sweet woman who would ohh and aww at his ability to overcome his struggles for fifteen bucks.

"I just dun understand why we can't ride the damn things'all." The younger male finally drawls on, using his words carefully.

Suddenly, and without warning the older male stops in his tracks and turns on the young male who unconsciously crawls into himself until he stands a good foot shorter than the older male. The older male stares at him, hard, but not unfriendly… his body exuding the kind of wisdom and knowledge only a man of his age can hold.

"Boy, do ya know whats in them wagon?" He speaks deeply, his words filled with the severity of the question.

"Nah sir…" The young boy whispers out, carefully.

"That large box there holds a 'relic'." He says the word carefully, as if worried he may mispronounce it and unleash some horrific evil into the world.

"A 'relix' sir?"

"Mmhmm. From them crusades in them orient lands." He draws on slowly, once again struggling with every fiber of his being to convey every bit of seriousness and reverence the topic deserves.

Hesitatingly the boy takes a look towards the large covered wagon which he has only been told contains a large golden box, easily a man and a half in height and as broad as four men standing shoulder to shoulder. He had disbelieved all the others, but hearing this old man, this man who refused to be involved in gossip of any kind, telling him the same… He swallowed hard and jumped his eyes back towards the old man who had begun to walk once again. Quickly he rushes to catch up in pace to him, and they make the rest of the journey to the city in silence.

* * *

AN: And there you go everyone, the first chapter of my first official fan fiction. I will let readers be warned now though, this will eventually be a future Rin/Sesshoumaru fic and I do plan to take it to mature levels of delicious lemon fun. Not sure how quickly I'll get to writing the lemon though, because as you can see our Rin and Sesshoumaru haven't even come in contact again yet. Hope you enjoy the build up to the story!

I'd love to hear back from everyone who reads this as well. 3


	2. Chapter 2

The drive through town, with the morning sun reflecting off the dashboard of her 2005 PT Cruiser, is only mildly annoying. There are few cars on the roads, with most of the first shift workers already long since clocked in their offices and the next rush not due until noon. She drives carefully, listening to the sound of the tires against the asphalt and the gentle hum of the transmission under the hood. The roads are damp with yesterday's showers, an occasional puddle splashing onto the raised grass by the side of the road as she pulls into tight turns at various stop signs and stop lights.

She pulls to a steady stop at a red light in the middle of a heavily wooded area, the road curving up ahead into an eventual right turn she knows she'll have to take soon. She is alone at the stop light, and without putting much thought into the action she turns the radio knob to 'on' and her body vibrates pleasantly as the radio bursts to life.

"…first time this particular exhibit has come to our corner of the country, right?" The female's voice crackles slightly at first, gently coming into a pleasant clarity just as the radio show host finishes her question to their guest of the day.

"Yes, yes in fact it is and we are quite excited for this day. The University has always wanted a chance to study this particular group of relics from the crusades, and most of us weren't sure we would ever get the chance." The male that answers her laughs heartily to himself, a pleasant enough sound on its own but one that doesn't seem to match the tone of his voice.

"So, to inform those just turning into the show. We are currently meeting with Professor Malik from the local University here in town…"

She curses to herself, biting down rather too forcefully on her bottom lip as she presses her right foot to the accelerator of her car. She knew that name 'Professor Malik' was notorious around the campus where she worked and studied, and not in a favorable light. He was an easier liar, and a sweet talker all the students and staff knew to take half-heartedly. She also realized, perhaps too late, just as she was turning into the long road which would eventually open up onto the campus of the very University the radio was now discussing that she knew nothing of this potential 'exhibit', and that fact made her stomach twist uncomfortable.

"…sure to stop by the University this weekend, open at 8AM on Saturday, to check out the exhibit for yourself. For many in this town I know this will be a-" The woman's voice abruptly goes silent as she parks and shuts the car off, the hum of the transmission ringing in her mental audio processes while the gentle buzzing of the engine as it cools down the only thing her ears perceive at the moment.

The parking lot around her is large, and she considers herself lucky to have been able to park only three rows away from the main entrance as she glances around the sea of parked vehicles for sight of any one car she may know. Almost instantly she catches sight of His car, noticeable only by the 'Dare to Wonder' bumper sticker plastered in the back window.

The car beeps happily behind her as she stomps off towards the school building, ignoring the shocking cold that beats against her body through the open jacket she has yet to zip up. Almost awkwardly she stuffs the car keys into her jacket pocket, struggling to hold it against her chest as she makes her way into the building.

* * *

"What the hell, John?" Her voice is noticeable irritated and she squeezes her body into the partially closed door to stand, huffing and almost out of breathe, in front of his office desk. John, in stark comparison, sits calmly and collected behind his desk, working slowly through a pile of paperwork placed neatly stacked on his desk.

"How can I help you this morning, Rayne?" His voice is gentle, almost intoxicating. He's trying to placate her, and the knowledge causes her to furrow her brows furiously and struggle to take a calming breathe so she doesn't explode on him… a reaction he is all too skilled at drawing from her normally collected composure.

"You know damn well." She bits down on her bottom lip again, the heavy iron taste of blood briefly covering her tongue before being diluted by saliva.

"You listened to the radio this morning, I presume?" That irritatingly calm attitude again, but now he finally lowers the paper he was working on and looks up to her. His pale blue eyes cause her heart to hitch slightly in her throat, and she finds herself swallowing down something that for once isn't stress or bile.

"When was I going to be told?" The anger has dissipated from her voice by now, a shaky unsureity lacing her tone instead.

"Now, sadly." He avoids his eyes as she groans vocally, giving her a moment of peace to engage in an act he knows she would see as completely loss of composure and completely inappropriate in front of her superior.

"How?" She finally asks, helpless now.

"He bought us out."

"Dammit. How?"

"He had more money than us."

"But it's Malik dammit!" She bits down on her lip again, visibly shocked that she had actually raised her voice in front of John.

"Relax, I understand. I'm angry too." She drops her shoulders slightly, collapsing into a chair in front of his desk.

"We've been booked for a year now… I just…"

"I know. It's complete bullshit." His eyes sharpen on her, and he quickly drops his gaze to the papers on his desk as she visibly shrinks against his gaze. "Listen, Rayne, its bullshit, it is, but he offered more money than we could offer. He rented out the space last night, I was hoping to be the one you found out from."

"…what do we do now, then?" She sounds defeated, and once again he looks towards her... his eyes noticeably softer, almost like a father contemplating over his child who had just lost their first pet.

"You keep your research, we'll book another date to present, and I suggest you show up at Professor Malik's presentation to show your support for a fellow peer. No reason to let his bullshit muddle your own standards."

"Have you contacted the families?"

"I have. Luckily for us he gave us a week of time to prepare for this. No one was scheduled to arrive in town until Thursday."

"They've agreed to come out again whenever we can get them here?"

"Yes, surprisingly you've managed to gather quite a collection of fans, the families included. No one gives more of a damn about reincarnation than those few people who claim they themselves have experienced it. They'll come, don't worry about that." Swiftly he gathers his papers neatly on his desk and pushes up from his own chair, his hands planted firmly on either side of the stack as he looks over Rayne. "Now, come on. I have one more piece of bad news."

Hesitatingly she looks up at him, clearly pouting.

"We've been roped into doing maintenance for Professor Malik's presentation. He wants us to catalog and look over the relics his sponsor has brought in." John can't help but chuckle as Rayne groans out loudly, dropping her head loudly to the desk in front of her.

* * *

Rayne's shoulder length dark brown hair is tied back into a bun and wrapped up carefully in multiple plastic food-prep caps. She wears large think scientific goggles, goggles which only serve to heighten the plump appearance of her pleasantly round face. People were constantly complimenting her round face, always telling her how young it made her look as if looking barely sixteen when she was actually twenty-two now was a good thing and something meant to be replicated as often as possible. She was just annoyed by the features that characterized her face, her strange brown eyes the only pride of her facial appearance. It wasn't the color that pleased her, because in all honesty brown by itself wasn't that impressive of a color, it was their very appearance. How looking into them could make you lose yourself, as if you were staring into something that had been around on this planet far longer than yourself. Her eyes knew things, as John was ought to say.

She sits at a large table, various odds and ends spread out evenly across the surface. Directly in front of her is a notebook, various notes scribbled in messy quick hand as she goes through each artifact carefully and takes notes about its appearance. John had told her that this had been done by the sponsor already by his own archeological team, but Malik had begged them to do it as well just in case something came up 'broken' or 'missing' and they had their own records of everything.

"Where is all of this stuff from, anyway, John?" John sat at his own table behind her, working just as diligently as she was. One gloved hand holding the objects as they described them on paper, the other gloved hand scrippling down notes as descriptively as they could manage.

"I've been told that they are artifacts from the crusades…" He trails off, returning his full attention to the strange scrap of metal he holds in his left hand.

"That can't be true though, most of these artifacts look like they come from the 16th century at the latest." She gingerly picks up a coin, twirling it gently between her index finger and thumb, eyeing the square hole in the center of the golden coin and studying the characters raised at each of the four corners of the center. "Besides, this coin looks Chinese. The crusades never expanded past Europe and the Middle East, right?"

"I don't know, Rayne, I'm a psychologist not a historian." He sighs slightly, and she has to once again bit down on her bottom lip to prevent herself from chuckling at his frustration. He obviously hated being roped into this as much, if not more, than she did.

"It's just…" Slowly she puts the coin down and turns to face John's back, which is hunched over in struggled frustration, "…they can't set up an exhibit of this stuff claiming it's from the crusades when it's at least an entire century too late, can they?"

"Rayne," He sighs heavily, openly this time, and turns in his black plastic chair to face her as well. "We live in an extremely religious town, and the University, whether we agree with this or not, will make a lot of money off of pushing this stuff as crusader history. Besides, these tiny trinkets here aren't the big selling point. The big selling point is the 'Golden Box'."

"'Golden Box?' Why would anyone want to come and see a big box?"

"Apparently it's not the box itself, but what's in the box."

"And what is that supposed to be? A corpse of some general or something?" She chuckles softly, growing silent at the shift in John's face as he looks at her in calm seriousness.

"The corpse of a demon, actually."

* * *

AN: Alright, finally getting around to formatting this chapter so she looks a little cleaner. Sorry about leaving her messy for a little bit, I uploaded her just in time to head off to class and I'm still getting used to how FF does their uploads/formats and stuff.

Thank you so much for everyone who left comments on the last chapter, I feel super supported and loved and I assure you that I don't plan on disappearing into the void any time soon!

Be sure to read, comment, like, favorite, follow, and whatever else should be done!

Thanks again  
~Chey


	3. Chapter 3

The two dark skinned males unhitch the mule from the covered wagon, careful to work together so neither lose a finger or worse against the think straps of leather that hold the entire piece of work together. Neither has spoken a word to the other since their final discussion, about the contents of the golden box, and the younger male's face is drawn in a confused and lost expression. He looks exsaperated, sore, tired, and mentally finished. They finish their job slowly, the older man watching as the young male leads the mule to his pin in the barn. The young male returns to his side and helps him close the large warehouse doors, which cling metallically as they lock together damning the wagon and the mysterious box to an existence cloaked in darkness.

"Boy." The younger male turns towards the older male, "You dun good t'day."

The younger male only nods, a weak and almost pitiful sight, and without waiting for another word from the older male he continues off down the dry dirt path, the bottom of his thickly callused feet kicking up small puffs of red dirt that is quickly picked up and blown away by the soft breeze. A breeze gentle enough to tickle the neck, but quick enough to ruffle a woman's dress. It was the perfect breeze in an otherwise uninhabital stretch of land. The grasses were too long were they weren't being hambered down by large European style homes and farm houses, even the dirt roads constantly engaged in a battle with the vegetation and the few trees that dotted the horizon were low laying with stretched thin branches. Not a thing like the beautiful shade giving oaks of the north or the evergreen pines of the southern coast the old man was used to calling home, and prison.

He watches the younger boy disappear over the horizon of the road, more than likely heading into town to find the nearest gathering of young people. The poor kid had seemed more than upset about the story he had told him, and while the old man knew when the give reverence to those deemed worthy he couldn't comprehend his fear about the situation. Perhapes it was some new age fable the kids liked to tell each other about things they had no business gossiping about. He sighs softly to himself, running his dark fingers through his short wirey hair, his too-long dirty nails feeling all too good against his dry scalp, it was no place of his to wonder about the happenings of kids. He had a job to finish after all. Just because the youngster ran off without a proper status update didn't mean he was allowed the same curtesy.

He turns once to look at the large warehouse, a strangely built large barn a better educated man would have noticed was built for this purpose alone, before turning to walk towards the just as ominous tiny one story house just a small walk away from the warehouse. There is no dirt path leading towards the house, the entire building surronded by layers of too-tall brown grass that scratches uncomfortable against his bare calves as he makes his way through the overgrowth to pull himself awkwardly onto the raised porch. The house itself is well built, sturdy, only needing a new cover of paint to hide the various pockets of wind and dust damage. In a place this dry, windy, and nasty he was suprised the house looked as good as it did. It was a small house, and there was obviously no staff on hand to take care of basic cleaning needs.

He knocks, a little too hard, on the front door and hears the sound echo throughout the doorway before the home slips into silence once again. For a long moment he wonders if he should just have followed that boy into town instead, when just as he prepares himself to walk away the door swings open quickly in front of him. Standing in the doorway, staring down at him in an almost drunken stupor, is a tall heavily built man wearing a black suit. The white man glares down at him, his strange golden eyes entrancing in a way that feels almost dirty. His skin is unnatureally soft and pale, and if it weren't for the blackness of the home the old man can almost make out strange markings... like makeup...

He gasps, a pain erupting through his chest... splitting it wide open in the agony of the sudden uncomprehensible feeling. The man, the pale and darkly beautiful man was gone... he had just been there... He blinks, hectically, and shivers uncontrollably as the sensation of warm breathe crawls across his neck. He can taste blood in his mouth now, and coughs loudly in a desperate attempt to fill his lungs with air. His coughing only sprays blood into the air before him, and his eyes widen in horror at the sight of the droplets gathering on the porch before him.

"Where is the younger negro boy?" The white male's voice is rough, raspy, and powerful. The tone almost making the older man grateful to die by his hands… a thought that forces a whimper from his lips. He is being killed by Satan himself, he is convinced of it, and the monster is making him happy for it.

The male growls deeply, a sickly animalistic sound, and throws the older male to the side all too easily. His body collapses without any attempt at catching himself, the large open wound in his back bleeding profusely into his ragged, muddy black shirt. The creature stands there on the pouch watching the old man die in bemused silence, when a soft muttering catching his sharply pointed ears. He stalks over to the dying man, grabs him roughly by the shoulder, his claws easily piercing through the thin cloth of his old clothes and drawing pin-pricks of blood from his flesh, and roughly forces him to sit, turn, and look at him.

The old man's black eyes are swimming with tears now, his lips moving almost silently with words this man has encoded into memory well enough to chant even as his body dies around him. The white man stares, almost horrifically, at the dying man until a single phrase catches his ears and his lips spread in a horrific grin… fangs showing clearly through his lips…

"Pathetic human, you creatures begging for savior from a being far superior to yourself. What makes you think anything better than yourselves gives a damn, hm?" He laughs, a cruel and disgusting sound that comes from deep within his chest. His red lidded golden eyes narrowing even sharper on the human, the old man's head beginning to loll to the side as the world begins to fade away around him.

With a movement so swift it easily dispels any further thought that this man may just be a superiorly talented human, he swipes his left claw across the older man's neck, dropping the body as the head rolls across the porch until it thumps audibly against the wall of the house. He stands, turning his attention down the dirt road and off until the horizon towards the town, and without thinking brings his bloody left fingers to his mouth. His tongue wraps around the bare fingers easily, each clean finger sporting a nail sharpened into a deadly and noticeable weapon… his long black sleeve slipping just enough to expose the very tips of red marks crawling along his wrist and disappearing further down his arm.

He can smell the young boy still, his scent clinging almost obsessively to the dead male lying headless at his feet now, but he'll wait for now. No use exposing himself to the town before he's completely ready. Another grin crawls onto his cold and beautiful face, this one exposing a quick thinking mind and plots even he refuses to lose himself in at the moment. With another all-too-swift movement he gathers the corpse into his arms, the disembodied head locked in his left hand, and moves himself back into the dark house.

The darkness welcomes him happily as he closes the door behind him, unceremoniously dumping the corpse in the tiny bedroom with the others. He can already smell the heat working on them, despite the fact they had been disposed of for less than an hour now, and quickly withdraws himself from the room to slip back into his position on the torn old couch that smells of sweat, male ejaculation, and female fluids. The very act of looking at this piece of furniture makes him feel dirty, but there is no sense in standing until sunset which is still a good six hours away.

His eyes fixed on the drawn black curtains he watches, and waits, for the gift of nighttime to grant him the go ahead on his new hunt. Only one more child down, and he can finally grant himself the pleasure of unlocking the last piece of this plan years in the making. He chuckles softly to himself, crows cawing loudly as they fly off the broken roof of the house as he erupts into a loud laughter. Humans would describe that laughter as the sound of Satan himself at the thought of bringing down God, but only because they believed themselves to have successfully eradicated the others.

* * *

AN: Yay, we're moving right along in the story now! My goal for this fic is to get at least a chapter posted a day, however seeing as how I am a very busy college student I can't promise that that will always happen. I will promise to try and get as much written as I can in my free time, and I will always post at least a single chapter a week.

Hope you enjoy! Read, review, favorite, follow, share! I love hearing from ya'll!

~Chey


	4. Chapter 4

Rayne yawns and stretches as she drops to her bed. She is once again wearing the checkered night gown, with the dark orange and peach colored squares dancing with each other on the soft breathable cloth. Her dark brown hair falls down her shoulders as she brushes her long, delicate fingers through the soft strands and with another yawn she drops to her back on the bed, her brown eyes locked on the slowly rotating fan above her bed.

Her day had been uneventful at best, frustrating at worst. Her mind continually dancing over the conversations with John, her canceled presentations, and that worthless, conniving, scheming piece of shit that was Professor Mikal in all his horrid glory. She couldn't say she was honestly mad at him though. She understood how the politics of the university worked, and while she was furious at him for taking advantage of that she also couldn't be mad at him for being allowed to do something the very system they were all stuck in only encouraged.

She lets her eyes close, her heart beating noticeably in her chest… heavy and almost pleasant against her chest bone. Every heartbeat proves you haven't died in your sleep. The thought brings the Golden Box to her mind, and her eyes shoot open, a gasp silenced on her lips. The man from her dreams had crossed through her mental images again at the thought of that abominable box. His golden eyes… piercing… obsessive even.

She forces herself to shake the thoughts and images out of her mind. She had watched John tirelessly clean that damned box today, mesmerized by not only the sheer size of it but the very design of it as well. It was, in fact, entirely gold plated with jewels of various sizes and colors encrusted around the tip of it and across the face of the box were intricate patterns of a foreign language she couldn't even begin to decode and comprehend. The box itself had seemed to hum to her, making her flesh crawl and her stomach turn. In fact she had almost lost her stomach over it, the humming causing her to grow faint headed as she had walked towards the box… That was when John had stepped in and offered to clean it instead. She was thankful for his interference, but had only managed a nimble nod before she had been forced by her body to step away from the box again.

She knew all too well she was doomed to visit it again in her dreams, and she was greatly anticipating tomorrow when the damn thing would be shown for an hour and then boxed up and shipped away to continue its trip to the capital where it would be placed behind a think wall of glass and put up for display for the rest of eternity as far as she was concerned. Let someone else be cursed by the damn thing, she was already uncomfortable living with just the knowledge that something like that even existed in her reality.

It was almost Saturday, she kept telling herself, soon it will be over and then she would be free to continue working on her project and everything involving that slimy Professor Mikal could be forgotten for the rest of her life. It wasn't until her dreams slipped into the image of the golden eyed man again did she even realize she had fallen asleep… and yet this time she danced almost happily with him… instead of waking up screaming and struggling for air as she did every other night.

xXx

The young dark-skinned male threw another shot into the back of his throat, swallowing easily as he turned to continue boasting to the other colored women that had gathered around to hear his story.

"We's were hired by the church, dem box is importent, see?" He slurred his speech worse than normal, the alcohol clearly soaking easily into his blood stream.

"The church, eh? Sounds im'pressive." A young woman cooed towards him, her beautiful breasts pushed up in her hand-me-down Victorian style pale yellow dress, a dress only slightly stained and torn at the hem.

"Mhm, see, they need'ed me to protect that Ol'man."

"Ohhh, did you have to fight many bandits?" Another woman in an equally revealing blue dress coos.

"Mhm, all of 'em!" He chuckles loudly as the women around him sigh dreamily, draping his arms easily around two willing young dams, both who blush and giggle towards each other and the other apparently jealous women.

They urge him on with more drinks, each shot he takes only making them more eager as they slowly edge him up the stairs away from the bar to knowing glances and grins from the other patrons. These ladies of the night have done this exact act so many times it came to them like second nature now. This town was home to the countries best brothels, being so locked in the middle of god forsaken nowhere and too far from the California border to be of any good to those moving their entire families across the West in hope of riches. Though every single male, and many married men, tried and every single one of them ended up here, and while the white ladies normally refused to sleep with a colored man these ladies were more than happy to oblige. So long as he had the money.

He can feel his back pushed against the uncomfortable feather mattress, a woman pressed pleasurable against his lower body while the other women work happily at his neck. He is shirtless before he can comprehend the situation, unaware of the woman pulling money from his pockets as they pull away his dusty pants. He can feel lips, abrasive and forceful, on his lips and he sloppily kisses back as another woman works on pleasuring his exposed manhood.

He is unaware of the tall white male's presence as he steps into the makeshift bedroom, watching the four girls working on the young male. Gently he taps his heavy shoe against the less than secure wooden floor beneath them, and without taking her hand off the young male a girl turns to look up at him. She opens her mouth to say something, her eyes suddenly angry at this intrusion when she freezes at his golden eyes… his lips spread in a wide grin that exposes his sharp canine teeth. His suit is stained with blood, noticeable in the strange lantern light that spills throughout the room. Her eyes crawl down his body… freezing once again at both of his hands, which hang loosely at his side… blood covered and dripping into a small puddle at his feet as the blood traces down his flexed fingers. Quickly her eyes dart back to his face, nothing but a final gasp pushing past her lips as he lunges swiftly at her.

Downstairs the bar is painted in blood, the smirks and knowing grins forever erased from their faces. He makes a swift cleanup of the upstairs room, and stands on the mattress looking around at his carnage. The scent in this room is nauseating… the scent of prostitution and shame… without thinking he smears the blood from his hands on the wall and sucks in the sweet scent of the new flavor added to the concoction. If hell existed, this right here… this is what it would smell like. Maybe the humans were right for exterminating his entire species. He'll show them exactly how right they were.

The glass of the window shatters around him as he pushes himself through the pathetic barrier. His feet hit the ground and instantly he shoots off towards the tiny home he had easily removed from the hands of that church. He is dancing across the ground, his movements so perfectly fluid he doesn't even land solidly on the ground once. Without pausing he pushes his way into the warehouse and falls to the golden box, his hands holding his body over the edge. He is shaking with anticipation, the box warm against his flesh and humming to him. He stands there a moment, absorbing the situation and the power of the box in reverent silence. The town around him is nothing more than corpses now, he a solitary creature left with the object of his fascination… the object he has so desperately craved since he was just a child.

Carefully, his body shaking with fear and anticipation for the first notable time in his life, he begins to push at the heavy lid. The golden box screams and sparks at him, his fingers blistering as the magical seal burns up his hands and dances around his arm, the very power of it burning away his suit sleeves in a mess of shreds that fall around his feet only to spark and burn out. He hisses to himself, a strange sound mixed with a growl deep in his throat as the blisters spread up to his elbows and move quickly up the rest of his arms. His shirt is on fire now, tearing and falling apart in shreds like his sleeve. The pain is excruciating, but the lid is beginning to slip now and he can feel the closeness of success… a feeling so sweet it blinds him to the pain as his very flesh begins to blacken and peal from his muscle. His fingers can slip under the lid now, and with a final scream he forces the last bit of his energy into a final shove. The lid falls over easily now that the seal has been broken, but his broken body sparks with the energy of it. He takes a step back, his body naked now and sparks of power continually to tear and peel his flesh away from his muscle, the muscle of his hands and forearms now burning into nothingness to expose the white of his bones. The last sight he sees in the only sight he had ever desires to see, and he feels nothing as the bullet tears through his back and chest… ripping his heart to shreds as he falls to his knees, the rest of his body erupting with the curse until there is nothing left but a pile of black dust that has already begun to be picked up by the wind.

A young man stands in the open doorway of the warehouse, a small silver pistol locked in his right hand at his side, smoke still trailing from the mouth as he walks into the warehouse and towards the open golden box. He wears black pants, his white button up shirt with silver buttons buttoned entirely up to his neck, and his black wind breaker billows slightly behind him as he walks into the warehouse and stops in front of the open box. He lets his pale blue eyes take in the exposed figure… only his face exposed.

He lies in the box, as beautiful as the church's angels and perhaps even more beautiful than that. His long silver hair brushed carefully back from his face. His eyes are closed, his expression no different than a sleeping humans… so peaceful and perfect. The young man can feel the tremble in his jaw from the sheer awe of seeing this creature lying here, so perfect and untouched by every aspect of time. He looks to be in his mid 20's, his pale face dressed with strange inhuman markings. Markings the man knows all too well. There is a purple crescent moon on his forehead and two red slash marks on either cheek. His eyelids are painted red, a color identical to the marks on his cheeks. These markings, these very beautiful markings that make the man look both beautiful in a feminine way and fearful in a way no human male will ever know, define this creature. This creature, lying here in this golden box, is the last demon of the ancient days.

xXx

AN: Man, am I the only one who squealed at the reveal? I mean, sure, it was predictable as hell, but dammit it still feels oh so good. We'll finally get some Sesshy goodness in the upcoming chapter! Bout time, right?

As always, please review, share, favorite, and follow!

~Chey


	5. Chapter 5

Professor Malik stood in the center of the small lecture room watching as various people his sponsors had sent over set up the area for the late night presentation. In the auditorium the public events were going on without a problem. He knew this small town was too simple minded to question whatever it was he felt like feeding them, and he couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he thought about it.

He was an attractive enough man, his long black hair pulled back into a low ponytail that hung to just below his shoulders. His cheek bones were high and noticeable against his gaunt face, his jaw long and thin and his chin well defined. His face was angular, a sharp sort of beauty most woman would prefer over their own round faces no matter how cruel it made them look when they weren't smiling. This appearance fit him just perfectly, his thin lips pursed in a look that could only be described as pleased. His bright brown eyes watched the scene unfold around him, his arms crossed casually across his chest as he paced back and forth in the middle of the room, only occasionally issuing out directions.

The help was to set up the podium in the far back of the room, centered, yes exactly like that. They were also to be careful with that large golden box, the one they struggled to carry with even four well-built grown men pulling on it, and prop it up against the wall with the lid facing towards where the audience would be sitting in their small metal folding chairs. Not as exquisite a scene as he would have preferred to set up for his guests of honor, but the best he could come up with under these special circumstances.

He watched the men place the box, perpendicular to the ground and no longer cursed to lie on its back, and smiled as they looked to him for approval before each stepped off the podium on their own. He walked towards it, pleased by the soft thumping his dress shoes made on the low-cut carpet of the floor. The carpet was a satisfying maroon color, his own maroon neck tie a perfect mocking imitation of it. He came to stand in front of the golden box, the height of it almost a full six inches taller than himself… a most amusing fact to him considering that he stood tall at an easy six foot two… the creature hidden by the seal must have stood at least six foot four… and the thought of standing before him sent shivers down Mikal's spine as he pushes his right hand to the golden box. The Golden Box pulses at his touch, a strange sensation only he is aware of, and with a dark grin on his lips he pulls his hand away from it and swiftly turns back to the rest of the room to continue issuing commands and placing decorations. The room is to look ceremoniously beautiful by the time the sun begins to set.

xXx

Rayne stands in the back of the large auditorium with John to her left. Together, in silence, they watch the uneducated public ooh and aww over various glass cases filled with a multitude of artifacts. However it is something hidden in a back room behind two large black doors that seems to garner the most attention, and for a brief moment Rayne ponders going over to look for herself before this event ends.

"Hey John?" Her voice is soft, barely above a whisper, but John glances towards her without turning his head and 'hmms' out a questioning response, "What's in that back room? I don't remember setting anything up back there this morning."

He shrugs slightly and pushes himself off the wall he was leaning so calmly against just moments ago. He stands at a respectable 5'10'', easily towering over Rayne's barely 5'4'' frame. He was also lucky, for unlike Malik's all too tall and thin body he was clearly built… a fact Rayne could never prevent herself from noticing, despite the fact that she only ever seen him in respectable black suits.

"We can go look, you know." He answers almost teasingly, grinning playfully at her blush. She may have once been only his student, but ever since she had graduated earlier that year he had seen her as nothing more than his colleague… or so he had convinced himself.

She watches him for a moment, sparing glances away from his pale blue eyes to drag her eyes over the doors leading to the back room. An occasional person or two leave the room, whispering excitedly to anyone they appear to know. Finally, after a long moment of hesitation that feels much longer than it actually was, she nods and without pausing to consider his actions he takes her left wrist in his right hand and begins to lead her across the large hall. People part easily around them, smiling and nodding before returning to their own explorations, and she can't ignore the strange warmth his touch teases through her flesh. Her fingers are numb with the sensation by the time they are pushing past the large, heavy doors, and the darkness of the room chokes a gasp from her lips as John slips an arm around her waist. A movement done only out of necessity, the room they have been packed in actually a thin hallway with barely enough space for two people to walk in comfortably, let alone two people squeezing past them on their right side to leave the room and both of them standing side by side.

As he slips his arm around her waist and pulls her closer to his side he can feel a soft, almost unnoticeable shudder. A reaction he chides himself for even paying close enough attention to catch in the first place. He could still feel the occasional arm or purse brush against the knuckles of his left hand even as he pulled Rayne closer against him, letting his lips hover just above her left ear as he softly whispers an apology for the uncomfortable amount of space. She just nods in response, nervously avoiding his face. He can also feel a strange buzz throughout her body, a strange mix of anticipation and nerves.

"You know, Rayne, if you wanted to come see whatever is in here so badly you could have told me earlier." He chuckles softly at her as she pulls away from his arm and steps into the gathering single line of people they had just walked into.

"I was not 'desperate' to see this. Just curious is all." She huffs slightly to herself, rubbing the spot on her side where his hand had been not two seconds ago. He just chuckles in response before returning his attention to the line of people.

From where they stand they can just see inside the larger room this hallway spills out into, and Rayne instantly recognizes the area as the back storage room for the auditorium. A room they normally keep cleaning supplies and a few electronics stored in. There are only seven people standing in front of them, and each time two people leave the room two more enter. All told, no more than a 3 minute wait. Not bad at all for whatever this 'exciting' thing is.

"Did Professor Malik tell you anything about this side exhibit?" Rayne speaks casually to John without turning back to look at him, choosing instead to stand on her tippy toes in an attempt to see over the people ahead of her.

"No, actually. He said the entire campus was filled with odds and ends, but seeing as how our job was only to clean up the auditorium afterwards I felt no reason to travel around exploring." He sighs softly, clearly bored once again now that the excitement of getting here was over. The thought that he was only playing along to amuse Rayne touched something in her, and a small smile pushed onto her lips as they stepped closer to the room.

They were right behind the doorway now, close enough for them to see various informational posters plastered up around the wall while the main attraction was hidden around a sharp corner to their right. A young man stands at the doorway just inside the room, watching the two individuals reading and admiring whatever inside the room at the moment. Rayne notices almost absent mindedly as the young man welcomes John and her into the room that he looks like a younger Malik, his dark black hair lose around his face and pushed behind his ears instead of being up in a ponytail like Malik always has his. The young man locks eyes with her for a moment as she steps past him into the room, and for a brief moment that ends as quickly as it comes to her she can taste him. A strange, foreign sensation that leaves her extremities numb. He tastes wrong.

John's arm is on her shoulder now, the weight pulling her eyes away from the young man who was simply smiling pleasantly towards her, and without any memory of the strange taste she follows by his side into the right end of the room. The room is lit by small lanterns, Asian in origin, and pinned to the middle of the wall are two swords. Large creatures that seem to pulse against their bindings, crossed at the middle but kept from touching by a strange wrap of leather that crosses across their sharp blades in a twisting pattern… a strange wrap of leather covered in runes Rayne cannot make out… almost identical to the runes that had covered the Golden Box.

"I don't understand…" John spoke slowly, staring at the swords with his pale blue eyes as he slowly runs his left hand through his short pale blond hair, "…they don't even match."

Rayne listens to him, comprehending his words all too slowly for the mind she was used to possessing, and as comprehension sinks in she forces herself to take a mental step backwards only to find that he is correct. One of the blades is clearly a straight edge, while the other is curved just so slightly.

"Hey, young man?" John turns towards the young man standing by the doorway, only to go silent as the soft click of locking doors rings through Rayne's conscious. She turns quickly, having to break whatever mental spell the strange blades had over her, to see the young man removing a key from the doors while his eyes remain locked on John.

"What in the hell are you doing?" His voice darkens noticeably, a strange and protective sound she had never heard his tone of voice take, and without thinking she watches in almost stunned silence as he pushes himself in front of and against her… protective. The movement shocks her deeply, the strange familiarity of it almost uncomfortable. John notices nothing of her sudden soft shaking, or how she stares with wide eyes towards the young man whose eyes suddenly leave John to lock on her, a grin slipping over his otherwise controlled expression.

"I'll have you know, young man, that Rayne and I are here by the request of Professor Malik himself. Your boss." John's voice remains stern, a solid foundation even as the floor begins to spin around Rayne.

"Exactly." The young man finally speaks, his voice snakelike and slow, and even John can hear the sudden heartbeat coming from the blades behind him on the wall… followed just as suddenly by the loud and awkward thud of Rayne collapsing to the ground behind him.

xXx

AN: Ahhhh, the horrible drawn out tension. I know, I know. I'm just as excited to get there as everyone else is! If not more... since I sorta know what's going to happen next! Muahahahaha. *clears throat* Anyway, I can officially promise that even if Sesshy doesn't come back officially in the next chapter there will be lots of yummy Sesshoumaru scenes with flashbacks galore!

Hope you're as excited as I am!

As always, read, enjoy, and please please please review. You have no idea how much your reviews of encouragement mean to me!

~Chey


	6. Chapter 6

She can feel herself falling, her hair beating harshly against her face. Her throat feels rough, sore, and it takes her a moment to clear her mind enough to realize that she's singing. That sound, that soft gentle ringing in her ears, is her singing.

"In the mountain, in the forest." She sings the song with ease, a song she had sung many times before.

"In the wind, I'm a dream." She feels the ground meet her toes, the cool dew of the grass crushing against the bottom of her feet as she pushes off the ground to continue running against the wind.

"Where are you, Sess…" The name freezes, cold, on her lips and she comes to a sudden stop as the world rushes into existence around her. She stands under a tree now, and turns her face to the heavens as a single cherry blossom petal falls onto her cheek.

She stands there for a long moment, watching the branches as they dance and breathe with the wind wrapping around them. The touch is gentle on the back of her hair, a touch that should have shocked her… but one she was somehow expecting… and she turns, a happy sensation crawling throughout her chest, but as her eyes fall on the man standing behind her she can feel her chest shattering. An explosive pain assaults her body as the man stares down at her… his beautiful face smeared in blood which stains his long silver hair, red spreading quickly in a blossom across his white kimono from his chest… and she feels the scream blistering from her throat long before she hears it, and as her scream spreads the ground shatters under her feet.

She is falling again, but just as she is able to comprehend the sensation she falls heavily to the ground, her legs giving out under her as she falls to her butt on the river bank. She can feel the quickly drying mud caked on her toes, a strange sensation that sends uncomfortable waves of feeling up her legs every time she moves her feet. In the river before her a tall shirtless man baths in the clear water, and she struggles to keep her eyes locked on his head… not from any twisted perversion on her part, but from a strange knowledge that she had wanted to look, desperately, during a time long ago… that she had in fact looked…

The world violently shifts around her once again, her vision suddenly erased as a warm body presses against her. She isn't afraid, in fact she can feel her own fingers tearing at his back in response to his presence… his attention. The strange craving in her stomach in back again, a feeling she had only ever acknowledged once in her past… and even then it felt nothing like this… this… absolutely consuming need. She needed to see him… needed to know… to confirm something her conscious mind was oblivious to… and yet as he removes his face from her neck to look down at her in the darkness, just as her eyes begin to adjust to the hazy moonlight, her mind screams at her again. A loud buzzing, unbearable, just inside her head that blurs his face into an incomprehensible mess… and this time the world goes black entirely.

xXx

A deep breathe. Pause now. Relax. Let yourself feel it, but do not allow yourself to become overwhelmed. That will only make this worse. Another deep breathe.

The scent of burning wafts into her presence first. A dark stench that stains the entire world around her. It is the burning of grass, wood… and something far more… arid… something, almost sickly sweet. The knowledge assaults her, and she can taste the burning stomach acid as she spits it from her mouth. Burning and the scent of stomach bile now fill her nose, and she coughs violently in an attempt to clear her openings. She is beginning to feel the heat now, at first nothing more than a gentle lick of warmth against her cheek… now a thin sheen of sweat hugging her flesh.

"Rin." His voice pierces through her consciousness, a deep baritone that vibrates pleasantly in her chest, and she cannot fight the command he has given her with only a single word. His voice so perfect he can speak epics to her in nothing more than a sentence and tell her everything necessary about life.

She opens her eyes, the fire barely an arm's reach away from her as she sits on a strange raised wooden platform it takes her a few moments to recognize as a Japanese style room. Breathing slowly, concentrating on every sensations and struggling to keep control of herself but fighting all the while, she turns to look at him, preparing herself once again to see nothing more than a blurry image or a bloody corpse staring back towards her.

His face is overwhelming. A gasp slipping past her lips as their eyes lock, his golden eyes in hers. His long silver hair easily reaches the middle of his back, blowing carefully in the wind… the occasional windblown spark pushes past his face and sending glimmers of beauty against new shadows and contracts of his perfect skin she had never noticed before. The thought shocks her. She had never noticed anything about him before, nothing besides the golden eyes of his, and yet somewhere… somehow… she had… she had noticed everything. She had taken in every detail.

"Rin." His voice is slightly more urgent now, his face emotionless and refusing to betray any knowledge to her. It told her to remain calm, to relax… it promised her that everything would be okay… and an urge forces her to slowly pull her right hand up to her face…

The soft, reflective crimson of her own blood shimmers back towards her… dripping lazily down her fingers and palm before finally drawing macabre lines of red against the pale flesh of her arm. She becomes aware of the taste of blood in her mouth almost by accident… and as she returns her eyes to his she realizes he looks afraid. His eyes are large, far larger than normal for him, and heavy… filled with something her mind refuses to identify… and yet the feeling of her own tears falling down her cheeks tells her the answer far better than any word could. She wants to touch him, and he answers this mental beckon by dropping to his knees in front of her and touching her face almost hungrily… he is desperate… and this knowledge forces a sob from her.

He wasn't angry with her. He never could be. She can feel her body going numb, the world beginning to fade around her and she knows something that makes her heart sink… She is dying…

"RIN!"

His baritone scream, the sound of _her_ name ripping from his chest echoes in her mind as the rest of reality slips between her fingers… until she is alone in darkness with nothing left… nothing left to her at all… except for his Golden Eyes… and the sound of his voice….

xXx

AN: Yes, yes, please forgive me for this super short chapter. I will try my best to never make one this short again, but I'm just so happy with how it feels all inclusive and together the way that it is that I couldn't imagine anything else being added.

Though I absolutely swear to you that in this next chapter Sesshoumaru will FINALLY come back! Yay!

Read, share, review, enjoy, and let me know about it! =D

~Chey


	7. Chapter 7

John dropped himself to Rayne's side the moment he heard her collapse to the floor, and just as quickly had her in his arms, glaring threateningly up towards the young man who had actually dared to take a step closer to them. While he had no idea why Rayne had fainted, nor what was going to happen next, he knew that no matter what he wouldn't allow any harm come to her. They would have to kill him first, and he refused to make that easy for them by any means of the word.

"Relax, Malik doesn't want either of you harmed." The young man put his arms before him slightly, hands up and palms facing towards John, a symbol of surrender.

"What in the hell 'does' Malik want then?" John hissed back, speaking through tightly clenched teeth. His pale blue eyes burrowing into the young man… and for a split heartbeat, barely long enough to actually comprehend the moment, he felt certain that the young man had cringed… almost as if he was afraid of him.

"Malik just needs help with something, and for some reason he's convinced the girl has the help he needs." The young male lowered his arms steadily till they fell completely limb by his side, "Help Malik, and Malik will be sure to make sure you aren't involved any further."

"And safe? We will both be let go, safe." The young man only nods, and John pushes himself to his feet with Rayne held bride style in his arms, and under nicer circumstances he would have allowed himself a moment to enjoy her closeness, "Fine, let's go help." He bitterly spits out as the young man unlocks the door, and with only minor hesitation he follows him out of the room… praying to a God he doesn't believe in to help them get out of this, whatever this is, alright.

xXx

Malik nods happily to himself as he admires their handiwork around the room. There is a single Japanese lantern hung on either side of the upright golden box. The walls are covered in thick wallpaper designed to imitate the inside of a Japanese home, and in the two rows closest to the raised platform that the box rests on pale tan tatami cushions line the area instead of black plastic chairs. The chairs themselves only sparsely fill the next three rows, only eight chairs in total. The rest of the room is empty besides the occasional wall scroll and candle, and the rather large handful of people who stand around waiting and watching Malik with an incredible amount of attention.

The silence of the room is broken abruptly by the sound of the only two doors being pushed open, and Malik and the rest of the observers turn to smile all too welcomingly at the two men who walk into the room. Malik is the first to speak up, his voice irritatingly calm and pleasant.

"My dear brother! So glad you could make it, and John!" His bright brown eyes only briefly pausing on the out cold Rayne before moving back up to John.

"What in the hell are you doing Malik? And what happened to the public, there was no one else here on our way here." John can't hide the gentle fury in his voice, and Malik only grins insufferably at him. For some reason the confirmation that the young man who had started this entire mess was actually related to Malik did nothing but make a painful kind of sense to him.

"The public was politely told that an emergency in the building came up, and that we greatly appreciated their visit to our little show. They seemed most… pleased." Malik smiles pleasantly, his thin lips stretching thinner across his face.

John opens his mouth to speak again when Malik snaps loudly, and all too powerful hands clasp around his forearms… he can feel the younger Malik standing directly behind him, breathing heavily against the back of his neck… and John can't stop the helpless feeling that crawls through his flesh as the younger Malik walks him into the room, past Malik, and finally forces him to sit in a black plastic chair. He watches helplessly, afraid completely, as two other individuals, one male and one female, force him to relinquish Rayne from his protective hold. The male, another creature too similar to Malik for it to be a humorous coincidence any longer, takes Rayne to the platform, setting her down on the ground just before it.

"John, I can taste your confusion. Let me introduce a few people to ease your nerves a bit." Malik chuckles pleasantly, as if he is only introducing a group of friends, "That man," He points calmly to the man that still sits by Rayne, holding her up to the best of his abilities, "Is a cousin of mine." He continues on, forcefully oblivious of John's silently muttered 'of course he fucking is', "That beautiful young woman,"

The young woman who had helped cousin Malik remove Rayne from John's embrace nods slightly towards him. She is breathlessly beautiful, and John refuses to let his eyes linger on her… a fear of losing his soul a strange and yet quiet assuring reality he wishes to avoid for as long as he can. Her eye lids are painted a delicate maroon color, not unlike the color of the carpet in this room, her golden eyes too powerful for her tiny frame. She wears an almost skin tight dark blue shirt, cut low in the chest to expose ample cleavage, and her dark blue jeans hug every curve in her waist tantalizingly. John is unnerved not only by her beauty, but also the way she so easily runs her sharp nails through her long silver hair… a subconsciously deadly movement that draws no blood for the moment.

"That, fine creature, is Akiko." Malik doesn't pause, continuing to name off and introduce each of the fourteen individuals in the room. None of the others resemble anything like Malik, but each one possess some unnerving quality about them. Two of them are hideous, even for John's more than liberal mind, almost completely inhuman in appearance and only allowing themselves to be shown briefly as they are introduced before slipping quietly back into the shadows of the room. The rest of them, every single one of them, are beautiful. Absolutely stunning, both male and female, and each one of them, besides the ones that look like Malik, have either silver hair or a pale blue hair with painted eyelids… eyelids that range from dark purple to bright yellow…

John can feel one of them roughly bounding his hands behind his back, not tying him to the chair but restraining him enough so that he stands no chance in attempting to escape easily. Any attempt would result in him clumsily falling over before he can remove himself from the chair, and with this many people standing against him he wouldn't consider it anyway… and yet, again, he is confused by the idea of 'why' these people would tie him up at all. They clearly outnumber him, and they clearly out skill him in any combat way imaginable… he can tell by the way the muscles subtly breathe under their clothes… if he can tell they are built, they must be extremely well defined. He says nothing about being tied up, and falls into a dark silence as he watches them carefully. He will survive this, and he will get Rayne out… and he will report this to every single police officer he passes on his way to getting himself and Rayne as far away from this tiny town as possible.

Malik nods to the others, and stands still in the middle of the room as they take their places around John. The two ugly ones drop themselves on either side of John in plastic chairs that scream humorously under their massive weight, and John counts the individuals who position themselves on the tatami cushions. The cushion directly in front of the Golden Box is left empty while Akiko takes her place on the cushion to the left, and brother Malik takes his place to the right with Cousin Malik to his right. The rest of the cushions are filled by the rest of the individuals with that beautiful silver hair, identical to Akiko's, while the others fill in the rest of the chairs.

Malik waits until everyone is in position, those on the cushions sitting upright on their legs which are folded underneath their behinds, and walks towards Rayne who has been left lying unconscious on the floor before the platform. He was glad that the Golden Box was as silent as it was, there was no use in letting things escalate too quickly for him to deal with. Slowly, carefully John notices, Malik lowers himself to his knees besides Rayne and gently sits her up, letting her head loll onto his shoulder in a supportive manner that forces John to look away.

Malik traces up her back slowly, his left fingers crawling tantalizingly across her red shirt… such a fitting color he can't help but hum to himself… a shirt almost as red as crimson, but all too lively and bright… a spot of color almost insulting to the rest of the blacks and whites worn by the others… Roughly he locks his fingers into her dark brown hair, forcing her head to tilt back and sideways, exposing to him her ear, and neck. He lowers her lips to her flesh, and once again John finds himself staring at the scene unfolding before him, unable to force his eyes away no matter how badly his body screams at him to stop looking.

"Rayne." Malik speaks once, his voice a sudden deep baritone, extremely unnatural compared to his normal light and almost bouncy tone… it also comes off like a sick imitation, someone pretending to have power where they in fact have none.

Rayne, however, reacts instantly.

Her eyes shoot open, a raspy inward gasp causing John to cringe horridly to the sound. It is a gasp often described by doctors and those in war… the sound a corpse makes just before it settles in the decision of being overcome by the eventual rigor mortis. She is no longer lolling against Malik, her body suddenly straight up and tight, almost painfully contorted against the tension that keeps her solidly locked in her position.

"Rayne, breathe." Malik continues to speak in that new tone of voice, the imitation of something beautiful… corrupting it… making it horrific all while keeping the deeper beauty locked within his words, and again Rayne responds, this time by slowly forcing herself to suck in air.

It is at this point that John realizes how deathly silent the room had become… as if no one else dared to even breathe, their eyes locked on the scene as intently as he was… He could even hear Rayne's heartbeat, pounding heavily and slow in her chest… but could hear no one else's… his attention completely absorbed by this single young woman.

Malik gently places his left hand on Rayne's next now, his index finger moving softly back and force against the spot of flesh where he feels her heartbeat the strongest. The pulse is heavy, strong, and beautiful. He wants to make it spill, and slowly his nail digs deeper until pinpricks of blood spread under his touch. Rayne makes no notion of having felt the cut, and her head drops dramatically to her chest as Malik suddenly and violently tears into her right shoulder with his teeth.

"Rayne!" John screams out, the sudden sight of her blood spilling down her shoulder and arm shocking him from whatever trance he had been in previously. The firm hand of the two ugly gentleman shuts him up instantly, and he can feel his eyes beginning to burn with unshed tears. In his sudden madness he almost swears he had just felt the Golden Box pulse along with another pulse of Rayne's own heart.

xXx

The scent is sudden. Assaulting every sense in his body, and then some, unlike any sense had ever done previously. The darkness of his hell shatters instantly, and he can see the scent wrap around him. He knows that scent. Has craved that scent far more than once spread out across his own body… has needed to taste it from the moment he watched her mature into a capable woman…

His heart pounds almost painfully in his long silent chest, and his hands flex instinctually against the sudden wave of long forgotten power that surges once again through his long cold veins. His eyes shoot open, and he can feel his chest rising as he sucks in more of that scent. That beautiful… delicious scent… and then the iron of it hits him, and his lips curl back from his fangs in the darkness as his heart beats once again, harder, in his chest.

Malik is staring towards the golden box now, Rayne sitting next to him with slumped shoulders and a hanging head, madness swimming in his eyes as he rises to his feet. John notices that he is shaking as he steps towards the box, when Rayne herself suddenly pushes to her own feet… and a noticeable gasp escapes from everyone's lips, including John's, at the sight. Malik pauses, turning to look at Rayne as she stands there, blood continuing to drop down her arm and just now beginning to gather enough on her finger tips to fall to the ground below. John cannot see Rayne's face, but the way Malik's suddenly drains of color causes his own stomach to drop, and without attempting to stop her Malik only watches silently, one foot on the platform and one off, as Rayne slowly walks past him towards the Golden Box… which John is positive now is pulsating, a heartbeat that beats evenly with Rayne's.

Rayne's dark brown eyes are pale and wide, empty as he body moves on its own accord onto the platform and finally towards the Golden Box. It calls for her, the runes engraved on it humming to her the same way the runes on the leather wrapped around the swords did. She is mere inches away from it now, and the warmth of it sends shivers down her spine…

He can taste the scent moving closer to him, and is suddenly aware of the fact that he had been holding his breath as it moved closer to him. All he could see was darkness, and he felt claustrophobic and furious and confused and terrifies all in a single unforgiveable moment. He could hear the gentle, soundless, push of her hand against something just in front of him… he could feel the black cage around him vibrating with it… reacting almost violently against her touch, a sensation something inside him told him only he could be capable of perceiving. He needed to get out.

The box vibrates against her bare right palm, her blood dripping slowly onto the gold before tracing through the intricate design of the jewels and runes. The entire box pulsates now, and she can hear someone familiar screaming behind her and within her as blood splatters dramatically onto the Golden Box next to the right side of her head. The pain is delayed, burning slowly down her shoulder and arm… her mind beginning to go hazy again as a long crack traces down the side of the box.

Malik had lunged himself at Rayne's back, John screaming once again only to watch the world spin and disappear into blackness around him as the ugly individual to his left hit him across the back on the head, hard enough to know him out, but with enough restraint to not kill him. Malik's right hand was now on the Golden Box as well, his arm close enough to Rayne's face to touch her. He had gotten just close enough to tear into her shoulder slightly more, most of his attack being nothing more than an attempt to spread more of her blood of the Golden Box… an attempt that he could see was working now, as more cracks began to race down the Golden Box, gems beginning to fall off of the case as the runes began to light up brightly in a blue fire and burn off. Rayne's blood had somehow managed to unlock the seals… or… at least he hoped it was Rayne… he, and no one else in this room, was not ready to deal with the creature locked away in there if he was powerful enough to break the seals himself. They were designed special by the church, after all.

The scent of her blood splashes itself against his entirety now, followed next by the sound of her scream as Malik tears his claws into the flesh of her back, once again drawing blood. This pushes him over, and the Golden Box screams. A deep and terrible sound as Malik jumps away from the box, leaving Rayne to fall into the light as the Golden Box shatters around her. The light burns bright, a sharp white that chases every shadow from the room in horror, and Rayne loses herself in it… the only sense she allows into her mind anymore the sudden warmth of the hard body she falls against and the strong right arm that wraps obsessively around her waist, swallowing her in perfection as she finally gives up the fight to keep conscious. She trusts this place, next to this man. Even if she couldn't explain why, and even though she knew she shouldn't.

The light faded away slowly, leaving a tall man nearly six foot four standing in the place of the golden box, which was spread in burned shards around his feet. He was shirtless, his only article of clothing the loose black pants the priests must have dressed him in before locking him away. Malik, and the rest of the individuals in the room, were silent in reverence at the sight of him. He was beautiful, everything their grandparents had told them of since they were babies in the crib. His long silver hair went slightly below his waist, and as the others in the room bowed reverently towards their Lord Malik dared to step within his reach… desperately to glance upon his Lord's face for the first time in his life… for the first time in any lifetimes for the previous too many centuries to count… what Malik didn't remember, or care to let into his mind… was that he still reeked of blood… Rayne's blood not only still on his hands, but also dripping carelessly from his lips… his chin stained with sin…

"Lord Sesshoumaru…" Malik begins, his voice once again that of a humble servant… but the sound is cut off dramatically, and suddenly, as Sesshoumaru thrusts his left hand out towards Malik, his claws catching him easily in the jaw and throat. The green of his fingertips bleeds slowly into his victim, and the rest of the room remains reverently silent as Sesshoumaru's raw power whips around them…

Malik stares towards his Lord, his eyes bright and mad, even as blood fills his throat and his blood begins to mix with Rayne's. His Lord's face is beautiful, even as his eyes bleed red and the fangs grow in his mouth… even as the poison begins to melt away the flesh, muscle, and bone in Malik's face… Sesshoumaru wants to spit out something vile, tear into him verbally, send him to hell and beyond and pick away every inch of Malik's flesh slowly so as to not kill him, only torture… and all he can manage in his unimaginable fury is to scream again, another horrific sound that is more of a rapid snarl, a threatening guttural sound that rips from his throat as his muzzle begins to elongate into that of a dog's.

Malik's body collapses to the ground unsatisfyingly as Sesshoumaru's claws finally burn entire through his skull, leaving the young man dead, and at the heavy thump of his body Sesshoumaru finally takes his first look around the room, his right arm still wrapped protectively around the girl that smells like his. The sight of the others shocks him into calmness, his body quickly reverting to his calm collected nature as his senses are assaulted by the strange sight of their clothes, and their furniture as his eyes trace over the black plastic chairs. Everyone is bowed towards him, except for a single human sitting passed out in a chair… a human who is none of his concern. He can feel his girl's weight limp against him, and knows without even looking at her that she has been out cold for a while now. The rest of these creatures around him are Youkai, like himself, he can smell the stench of it… and while they seem to passively worship now, as any good minion should, he doesn't trust this area… he doesn't know this area… and he knows his priority right now is to clean and bandage Rin's wounds…

Without a pause in his thought processes, moving swiftly from one mindset into the other, Sesshoumaru pulls Rayne into both of his arms and leaps from the building, easily tearing away at the strange material with his long poison wipe, which melts through the metal as easily as it melts through flesh and bone. Within seconds Sesshoumaru and Rayne are gone, Sesshoumaru heading quickly towards the thick forest that surrounds the rural campus.

xXx  
AN: There, see? I promised you Sesshoumaru's return and there he is. Yay! =D Exciting stuff to come now, also, yes, I know his swords were left behind but seeing as how things turned out I feel like his biggest goal is to take care of 'Rin' (and yes, the name mistake was on purpose) and figure out what the hell happened. Then he'll need his swords.

Stay tuned!

Read, share, favorite, follow, and please review! I love hearing back from everyone!

Thanks again,  
Chey!

Ps. In return for the shortest chapter last chapter, this one is officially the longest, so yay!


	8. Chapter 8

She was dead. He knew this fact deep within his soul, an undeniable reality he knew he was forced to suffer with, and yet as he lowered the unconscious young woman to the slightly damp grass of the forest clearing he had found his way to after running from that repulsive place he couldn't help but shiver at her scent. She still reeked of blood, but dammit it wasn't her blood… she had no right to smell like that… He felt no anger at the situation, no sense of relief, nothing. He was too shell shocked to feel anything besides the cold night hair brushing through his long hair, and the strange crawling sensation across his bare upper body… he had never made a habit of being in such a state of undress out in the opening where anyone could stumble upon him. He lowered her softly, careful to place her head with a tenderness reserved normally for children between their parents… and he could not explain why he felt the need to be so gentle with her, perhaps it was something to do with her scent and the fact that she was NOT that scent. She was weaker than that scent, and yet the scent still made him careful.

As he dropped himself to a sitting position at Rayne's side he was finally able to get a complete look at this girl that smelled so familiar and yet so foreign. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky, what little light it offered swallowed up by the strange dark sky he wasn't used to, and yet he could still easily make out her form under the shadows of the darkness. She was shorter than his Rin had been, but how much he wasn't sure. She was also built differently, an eerie similarity that was masked easily by her sheer size. She was not by any means a large woman, in fact he couldn't deny that she was beautiful in the same breathless way Rin had been, but with a different undertone. She was softer, less hardened by a childhood spent fending for her life in the forests, and shaped in a way that much better fit this strange environment he had been forcibly dragged into. Her chest was larger, her body angled by much more drastic curves, her hips wide and womanly in a way Rin, nor any woman he could remember from his world, had never accomplished. Sesshoumaru could just make out the curve of her clavicle, the sunken skin just beyond her neck strangely tantalizing against the blurred sheen of her own blood.

He watched her in silence, the only sounds an occasional insect or soft roaring of some distant animal he couldn't name and his only constant companion in the darkness the gentle caress of the night wind. He could hear the wind playing with the trees around him, their scent foreign and almost dirty. Nature caked in something that clearly had not been around in his reality. His face was blank, his golden eyes drawn and distant on some long lost thought. He was unable to admit it to himself, but he was afraid. Afraid in a foreign and dirty way. He was even beginning to think thoughts in a language that was not his own, his own tongue sounding long away and foreign to him. The scent of her blood rushed up to him again, and his jaw clenched slightly as he forced himself to lean his bare upper body over her, his large and cottony tail wrapped around his waist in a way that was just now beginning to feel uncomfortable.

He stared into her face, her eyes closed and her breathing steady, and he could see the blood beginning to dry on her skin as the scabs slowly fell into place over her wounds. He could already make out the slowly forming bruise that would cover the right side of her lower neck for a while, but her life was no longer in any danger. Whoever that creature was, he had done a fine job in making sure that he left no permanent marks to her body. He stares at her a while longer, taking in the sight of her dark brown hair, another bit of proof that she wasn't Rin… no matter how closely she smelled like her… and with an inward sigh he drops himself back to his seat by her side, letting his eyes close in a soft daze as he remains upright with his senses open to the world around him.

He should leave her here, or drop her body off near some human village. He shouldn't even allow himself to stay long enough for her to wake. After all she wasn't who she pretended to be, and no matter how close she resembled her in the end it wouldn't change a thing. His Rin, she was dead. This was just a disgusting imposter… perhaps even part of the entire plot to destroy his land… but that would make no sense. By the time he was awoken she was already unconscious, even if she was part of the plan she was obviously an unwilling member of it.

Rayne groans softly, and Sesshoumaru's eyes shoot open and lock on her face as she begins to stir weakly before him. He had allowed himself to become too lost in his own thoughts and hadn't noticed when she began to rise from unconsciousness, and now if he ran off she would have been aware of his presence. He shall sit perfectly still then, aware of how helpless humans became in the dark.

xXx

She could feel someone watching her. That same intensity and power that had followed her through her dreams. She is also aware of the fact that her body is aching, screaming at her in agony that burns through the right side of her neck and right shoulder. She feels as if someone had torn into her flesh, blistered her skin, and beat her muscles until she could be beaten no more without losing the fight entirely. She moves her right fingers desperately, the feeling of the damn grass tracing through each individual digit sending shivers of pleasure through her spine. Her arm still works. Slowly, hesitatingly, she lets her eyes slip open, sitting perfectly still as her eyes adjust to the darkness around her until she can make out the contrast in dark shapes, ever so slightly. She can make out the tree line, and as she allows herself to turn her head slowly to the right, biting into her bottom lip as the pain screams through the open wounds in her neck and she can feel a fresh trickle of blood tickling down her flesh. Exasperate, her skin crawling with the pain again, she drops her head to the grass again, the sudden rush of soft wet coolness welcomed immensely.

Sesshoumaru watches her struggle to turn her head towards him, almost admiring her struggle as she breaks open the bite wound in her neck again and spills a fresh drizzle of blood. Something inside of him, somewhere he had never gotten used to feeling in the first place, aches at the sight of her struggle. Further proof of her weak body… and the determination he admired so deeply in his Rin, and without being aware of why he spoke he is suddenly aware of his own voice piercing through the night.

"Be still." His tone is a deep baritone that washes over her, and for an instant he watches her body stiffen in shocked awareness before she relaxes once again. His tone is stiff and serious, commanding without being cruel, and she obeys it silently.

Rayne lets her eyes fall closed again, exhaustion pooling through her body, and with her mind relaxed and conscious she reaches out for information about the world around him. Blindly grasping for anything unfamiliar, anything near, she becomes aware of his warmth to her right side. He seems tense, his stillness unnerving for a human girl who had never even imagined someone could remain as still and silent as he was capable without any sign of a struggle. He never shifted, never fidgeted, and even his breathing was painfully controlled and shallow. Paying attention to him as intently as she was only made her more desperate to suck in air, his firmness only allow nervousness to sink into her own mind. Sesshoumaru was painfully aware of how often she tapped her finger, a nervous movement humans were almost constantly allowing to slip.

"I wish to go home." She muttered softly, her words barely audible to her own ears, and for a long moment she assumed he didn't hear her… and for a shorter moment assumed that perhaps he had already left, seeing as how she could barely perceive anything about his presence besides a numb nudging in her subconscious. His voice was slow and calculated, and she could feel sleep pulling her into the dark lake of unconsciousness once again just as his deep baritone voice sent ripples along her awareness.

"Tomorrow."

xXx

The first thought that drifted into John's mind was the unbearable pain of how heavy his head felt. The very next thought was a violent awareness that ripped him from the sweet bed of unconsciousness and he threw his head back and his eyes shot open to stare accusingly around the room he was still locked in. His breathe came ragged in his throat, raw and blistered and uncomfortable as he licked the dry saliva from his lips. The room bled into his vision slowly, each blink revealing more of the destruction around him. The room was filled with rubble, strangely melted and cleanly cut metal covered occasionally with charred wood. He was entirely alone in the room now, besides what looked to be a slightly exposed pair of legs peeking out from under some of the rubble before him. The shredded Golden Box was the only thing blanketing the platform any longer, and he could make out blood splatters mixed in with the gold and gems.

His stomach turned at the sight, a single ray of moonlight burning onto the scene before being once again consumed by the churning cloud movement ahead, and hesitatingly he finds himself with his face towards the heaven to see the large hole that has been burned into the ceiling of the room. Whatever had happened in this room while he was unconscious had escaped through there, and he has to struggle to keep the bile in his throat. Rayne is gone.

He drops his head, his eyes burning as tears begin to push past the lips he tries so hard to keep closed against the unknowing horror around him. The waves hit him compulsively, his entire body shaking with the intensity of it as the sob tear forth from his chest. Rayne is gone.

"Sir, sir, someone is over here!" The controlled male's voice, professional and sturdy, snaps John out of his emotional fit, and he struggles to turn in the chair he is tied against to look towards the closed door from which the voice came.

"He…Hey! I'm in here!" John's voice shakes painfully from his throat, his own tone unfamiliar to his ears.

The large door is open and locked open by a young male that knocks the air out of John's lungs. This man, this barely five foot ten man, is smiling at him with pale blue eyes that gleam knowingly, his short cut hair pale blond. He wears a black suit, his silver buttoned white shirt buttoned entirely to his neck, and as he stares at John with that smile he runs a single white gloved left hand through his hair.

"Well well, if it isn't the pussy boy. Who would have thought you'd find your way to a town like this." He smirks slightly, clearly taking amusement from John's predicament.

"Robert… where are the police?" John's tone shuts down any chance of an amusing reunion, and Robert's face darkens at the question.

"You know damn well they aren't involved in this." Robert's voice is noticeably harsher, but before John has the ability to rephrase his question the door to Robert's left is pushed open and locked open by an older man, another man with the same pale blue eyes but wrinkled skin and short gray hair.

The olden man's eyes fall on John, and instead of Robert's amused reaction his own face sadness noticeable, and John cannot help but to advert his eyes from the judgment of the old man. A judgment that burns his stomach and makes it even harder to hold down the bile.

"My son, I thought you left your mother and me to avoid situations exactly like this one."

xXx

AN: Man, I am absolutely overwhelmed by how many people have read through this fic and am extremely happy and touched by the comments that have been left so far! I just want to profusely thank everyone, and encourage everyone who has enjoyed this to let me know about it! It is huge encouragement to keep writing, beyond just continuing for the love of the story! Thank you all so much!

Hope you all still enjoy the direction this is going in! Hopefully the church will be explained more in the upcoming chapters, Sesshy and Rayne will have their moments as Sesshoumaru gets used to this brave new world, and hopefully John turns out okay, because I actually really like him 3. I'm also desperate to get some more female characters in here, too many penises right now :p

Thank you all again! Remember, I love reading comments, love all the reviews, please read, share, enjoy!

Thanks again,  
Chey!


	9. Chapter 9

"I never ran away to avoid this, I never agreed with your end goal." John's voice is calm, reflective, as he stands and rubs his sore and robe burned wrists. He continues to refuse looking up at his father, but no matter how hard he fights the urge to acknowledge his presence he can't shake himself of the intense glare he knows he is being burned with by not just one individual.

"Robert, you have no right to be involved in this." John locks eyes with the other young man, glaring hard at the man who at first glance appears all too feminine for this line of work. He is beautiful, almost comparable to the very demons in this world they are assigned to hunt out and destroy, his waist too thin for the body of a man.

Robert just chuckles playfully and dramatically adverts his eyes, finding a random spot of the ground to be suddenly immensely interesting as he gives the father and son the privacy they for some strange reason feel entitled to.

"You left without telling us anything about yourself, John." His father's voice is hard, pained even… as if he was sad, a thought that John couldn't help but laugh aloud at.

"You act as if you were disappointed by my leaving!" For the first time in years John lets his eyes lock with his father, and as his stomach fills with guilt he instantly begins to backtrack, "I was wrong in how I left, I'll admit that…" Once again John adverts his eyes, glancing casually over at Robert who is busy miming 'oohs, and ahhs' at spots only he can see, "…but I was not wrong for leaving."

The room is silent, a heavy tension that John can taste and smell. A suffocating sense that threatens to swallow him alive, which his father finally speaks up, a sentence that almost forces John to regret every negative thing he had ever said about his over bearing, powerful, judgmental father.

"You were right in leaving." His father smiles sadly at John's disbelieving expression, "I am an old man now, John, I have done a lot of growing myself. This life was no life for you. You wanted to be an academic, a scientist, you wanted to study and help people."

"You only helped people as well…" John's voice trails off as his father, wearing a suit identical to Robert's and yet somehow more majestic around his old frame.

"No, no, we kill. You wanted to help." His father nods, satisfied with his own conclusion, and John knows better than to argue with his spilling wisdom. "We hide in the shadows, killing so that others do not have to know the secrets we know. That life was never meant for you."

"Yeah John, you're too damn good at being oh so noisy." Robert is at John's side now, and John can't restrain an uncomfortable shiver as Robert's arm finds his way around his shoulders. Even his father could taste the innuendo in Robert's tease, and John is thankful he chooses to ignore it by simply turning away from the two young men and keeping his mouth sealed, and any opinions locked forever with himself.

"Now that that pleasant reunion is over, what are you two doing here?" John's eyes narrow at his father as the old man's shoulders slump visibly, even Robert seems to grow heavy besides him as the young man removes his arm from around his shoulder. "What, what's going on dad?"

The old man seems visibly touched as he turns to look at his son, but his joy at being called 'dad' by his estranged son is all too deeply masked by a much deeper and darker emotion. Once again John finds himself struggling to keep the bile in his throat, a sickening emotion followed by the unnerving sensation of his toes going numb and his legs threatening to give out under him.

"There was a… an… object stolen from one of our churches about a week ago." The old man's voice is deep and slow, and John connects the pieces far quicker than the old man can explain. His father would have been more proud of his only child's highest intellect if the moment itself wasn't so grave.

"What in the hell was in that box?" John barely hears his own words, but he can feel the tension of them as they poor uncomfortably from his lips. Before his father is able to voice his response Robert whispers almost prophetically besides him.

"The last Ancient Demon." Robert's words beat into John, and he is aware of the floor rushing up to painfully meet his knees long before he is aware of his legs giving out under him.

xXx

He had been told stories of the great ancient demons since the time he was just barely a child. His mother would take him happily into her arms and press him against her breasts as she spoke of the ancient days, days when their human ancestors were beaten into submission by their evil overlords. The story always started out the same, with John huddling in fear as he listened to stories that became more gruesome and horrific the older he became. When he was sixteen years old his parents had told him for the first time that these ancient male demons would routinely prey on young human girls, violently forcing themselves onto them until the sheer force of it left them dead. He was told about how the demons were ruthless rulers who would kill humans simply for the sheer enjoyment of it. He was also told that it was his pale blue eyed, pale blond haired ancestors who finally discovered a way to kill the demon overlords and finally free the humans.

The revolution had begun small, with a single village in Europe. This single village was controlled by an especially cruel fire demon, a man that gained pleasure from watching women and children burn alive before him. He would light them up and watch their flesh melt from their living and screaming bodies. He preferred to burn the beautiful ones this way, and some humans spread rumors about how he was simply jealous of their human beauty, something demons refused to acknowledge in humans they weren't preying sexually on. It was in this village that John's first ancestor was born with pale blue eyes and pale blond hair, the only child not born with dark black hair and brown eyes. His ancestor proved himself to be just as powerful as the demons early on, easily taking down vicious wild animals with his bare hands, and yet it wasn't his raw strength that alone gave him power. It was his very touch. While their fire demon lord was enjoying another round of torture his ancestor spoke out against him, and when the demon lunged at him he put his hand out before his face and spoke the ancient words every descendent is still taught to this day. The fire demon lord's face came in contact with his hand, and the village was blinded by a bright white light. When the light faded the demon lie dead before his ancestor. The first demon killed by a human.

This first ancestor had married, every one of their twenty three children bearing the same pale blue eyes and pale blond hair, and from their family they had spread out across every nation, cleansing the land as they went. It wasn't until the blood line found their way to Asia did they finally begin to encounter demons far more powerful than any of the demons they had fought to that point. These powerful demons were in control of massive armies, the entire land divided amongst them while the humans stayed out of the conflict. Most of the humans even seemed happy to have their demonic overlords. They respectfully referred to them as Youkai, and they even had their own group of Youkai hunters that would kill any demon who started causing too much trouble for humanity. These lands posed a unique challenge for John's ancestors, and to prepare for the eventual eradication that they knew had to take place they began to build towns, cities, and raise their own armies.

Eventually, the church was formed. Each leader taught in unique demon hunting talents and abilities, and their world was at peace under the church's control. One day, the church's massive armies were ready. Their armies loaded into ships and set off across the deadly sea, and when they made landfall the battle ensued. Most of these 'youkai' were as powerless against the church's armies and John's ancestors as the rest of the demons were, but there was a single Lord who refused to show himself in any battle he knew he couldn't win. He would melt through entire platoons of foot soldiers, leaving fields of corpses in his wake single handedly. He would avoid traps almost obsessively. He would outsmart and outwit them at every turn, until they were left with a small collection of men they knew they could no longer risk. That was when they finally learned of this Lord's only apparent weakness.

This great youkai Lord was madly in love with a human woman.

She was easy to track down, hiding out in a small castle far away from his lands so as to protect her, and by the time he finally ran to her, by the time he was finally close enough to save her, it was too late. He held her as she died in his arms, and he was easy prey to pick up. They also knew they couldn't kill him. He would be blindly furious and would easily eradicate every last human in Japan if they didn't react quickly, and correctly. They settled on binding him for all eternity in hell and preventing him from ever being free again. He would suffer for his sins. His crime? Being born a demon.

xXx

"No…" John is breathless, and he is only mildly aware that he is being lead down the small hallway where a lifetime ago he had put his arm around Rayne for the first time.

The two blades on the wall react visibly to him as he reaches out to take them. They are fighting his touch, his nearness, and yet the binds crawl up his arms and burn painfully into his skin as he locks the grips against his bare palms. The pain is ripping, and he can hear himself scream as raw green energy dances up his arms. His father and Robert stand a respectful distance behind him, watching him struggle with the blades as John's pale blond hair bleeds strange streaks of red. They stand in utter silence, his father's expression unreadable while Robert looks on in mad interest.

John can feel the seals binding to his very bone, the ancient spells bleeding into his veins and challenging his very blood. They had told him he may die. They had told him this should kill him. All he could see was Rayne. All he could feel was Rayne. All he needed was Rayne.

A final scream erupts from his chest, a deep and powerful sound that spreads green and red energy out from his body. His father remains still and cold as the energy beats against his face, Robert actively covering his face with both of his arms.

Moments pass. Heartbeats and sucked in breathe. John holds the swords limp at his side, careful to keep the blades from touching the ground. He is panting with the struggle, his body both exhausted and vibrating with life that feels foreign, stolen, and beautiful. His body is taller, his pants almost comically short on his new almost six foot two frame, and he can feel the new muscles slithering under his skin. His normally short nails are longer, sharper, and black. Slowly, with a strange new mesmerizing gracefulness, he turns to face his father and Robert.

John can smell them now, a maddeningly overwhelming sense that claws horrifically in his mind, and he struggles against the urge to run from their stench. They smell so human, caked in sweet and flesh… he can smell the blood pulsing under their skin. He can also feel their expressions change, the subtleness of human emotions painfully obvious to him now. They both look awed and terrified, as if they are fighting against the desire to fall to their knees and bow to him. What he doesn't know is that they are staring at a different John. His once pale blue eyes a strange mix of red and blue, unnaturally and beautiful and unnerving and wrong and wonderful all at once. His pupils are black vertical slits against the splattered paint that are his irises, slits that flex and continually reflex against the light in the room. His short hair is slightly longer, barely touching the tips of his ears now, the streaks of red darker at the roots and lightening to the ends. His face is thinner, well defined and startling sharp angles where his face used to be gentle and round. Beautiful, but in a cruel way, beautiful in a way only a demon can manage. His long sleeves are shredded, the occasional black marking in the shape of ancient Chinese-looking characters barely visible beneath the shreds on his arms. Even the blades themselves, which he holds locked firmly in both of his hands, look different. Their once silver, clean blades now seem to shift unnaturally between the red of blood and the pale red of diluted paint, but only in streaks that match the streaks in his hair. The blades seem alive with the colors, breathing along with John.

His father had told him what must be done, and neither of them saw a random human girl worth risking their own lives for. John knew otherwise.

xXx  
AN: And there we go, a completely John/Church centered chapter. Why? Because I like John, and I feel like the story needed some more development before I jump into the fluff that is just Sesshoumaru getting used to our world. Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading, and please share, comment, favorite, and every other good thing you can think of!

~Chey


	10. Chapter 10

The warmth of the morning sun settles deep into Rayne's face, an enjoyable sensation that slowly rouses her from the void of sleep. Her body is stiff now, the ache of the previous not all but gone besides a few points of deep aching in her throat that still prick her conscious mind. She can tell she is bruised as she opens her eyes, squinting against the blinding light, and pushes herself weakly to a sitting position. Her neck pulses in disagreement as she forces herself to roll her head and stretch her tight upper body. The tender flesh sensation every child has felt at least once, and more than likely far more often than that.

The sense that she is being watched sinks deep into her conscious mind as her eyes adjust to the bright world around her, strangely filtered through a setting she is not used to waking up in. Her subconscious is also actively aware of who the staring eyes belong to, and she moves as steadily and carefully as she can manage with the sore right shoulder and damaged neck. She doesn't know this man, this creature, and yet she still fears turning towards him only to find that he had left in the night.

_You are afraid of your dreams being meaningless._ Her mind accuses her, bitter and harsh even with the tone of her own voice in the back of her head. In all honesty, she was terrified of this. The nightmares had become such a part of her existence this past year that she had almost found a new existence in knowing that they weren't meaningless. She didn't understand them, but they were no longer a sign of a cracking mind. At least not at this moment in time.

"You're awake." His baritone voice sinks into her body slowly, relaxing her shoulders with the richness of it. He sounds like thick coffee and hot chocolate. She already loves the tone, goosebumps prickling down her arms as she acknowledges that he was speaking to her… that he hadn't left in the night.

"Yes, I am." Her voice is soft and gentle in a way Rin's wasn't, her tone mature from an experience Sesshoumaru couldn't begin to comprehend… he could only guess it had little to do with nature as Rayne slowly turned to smile at him. A strange, almost stressed smile… something she tried desperately to pass off as genuine… something that perhaps she even felt was genuine. A woman who could even play herself… Sesshoumaru couldn't hide the smirk that sparkled in his golden eyes as he took the sight of her freshly woken self in. Again he found himself astonished by how much like Rin she looked, and exactly how different they truly were. He knew exactly what his younger brother's experiences had been with the reborn, and he refused to let the same occur to him. This woman would never again be blurred with His Rin. This woman would never be that worthy.

…_and yet you stayed._ Sesshoumaru ignores the voice in his head, narrowing his eyes towards Rayne in reaction to his own mental voiceover. He notices her reaction to the glare before she is even aware of having a reaction. A slight twitch, as if pulling back and huddling, but only slightly and barely perceptible. A reaction no human would have caught, and he found himself once again curious of this human girl… a normal human wouldn't have caught the reaction even if they were the ones to make it, and yet she collected herself instantly, once again sitting straight up with her head turned casually towards him as if nothing had happened. She wasn't afraid of him, she was afraid of something much deeper, and she was constantly aware of this.

He continued to stare silently at her, and for a moment Rayne felt completely taken aback by this behavior… and found her mind wandering in her confusion. The previous night was a painful blur in her mind, and she could feel something tickling her hippocampus without making itself known. A fact, a memory, something that she felt she should remember but was simply refusing to step forward and explain to her the situation. Her mind, her entire awareness, was too consumed by this man who sat before her, staring at her as if staring alone would bring forth everything they both wanted so desperately to understand. He watched her suck in the brisk morning air, hold it deep within her lungs, and slowly release it. He could smell the sweetness of the moisture from her breathe, but he refused to acknowledge it. She had to start somewhere, or else they would sit here endlessly until time came to a final stop around them.

"Who… Who are you?" Her voice was soft, that maddening gentleness he wasn't used to. It was softer than Rin's, and more foreign. Rin had been obsessively respectful towards him, but this woman wasn't being respectful. She was just being, and for a moment he wondered how he would have felt if Rin had been this friendly with every person they had crossed paths with. Rin was never unkind, but this woman almost came off as weak, and that unnerved him. No person with that much control over their own weakness was weak.

The question didn't sink in until the obsessiveness over her tone of voice and behavior finally swam away, and the question once again left him mentally gaping at her. It was such a pathetic first question, and yet one that summed up the very thing both of them needed to start with. Her smelling like his Rin was not enough, and her acting so familiar around him would only make sense with a name… or start making less sense and they would both deal with that as it came.

"Sesshoumaru, Lord of the Western Lands." He spoke clearly, with a determination and set belief that Rayne couldn't help a smile that crossed over her lips. A smile he clearly did not find amusing as his cold golden eyes grew colder against her. Rayne, however, ignored the glare and Sesshoumaru found himself returning to his emotionless glaze as he watched this strange woman. This strange, insufferable, unreadable, confusing female creature. For a split second he even questioned her humanity. She was afraid, but of generality and not him. She was amused by things others would have thrown themselves to his feet at. She smelled infuriatingly delicious. The air around her burned with flavor, a richness not even Rin had given off and a fact that made something inside his ache and angry. This woman was Rin in all her best ways, and was something else entirely. An imposter and a… He refused to dare to even ponder any thought further than that.

"Forgive me, Sesshoumaru," She ignores the renewed glare he gives her for refusing to add any title to his name, "This 'is' the West now, and you aren't the lord of it." She chuckles, a single and maddeningly sweet sound that barely escapes her lips before a firm hand has her around the neck and the air is forcibly exiled from her lungs as Sesshoumaru thrusts her back into the soft earth.

He is growling deeply in his throat, infuriated by this mere human's mocking of his title, of his position, of Him, and he is furious by the fact he cannot bring himself to even harm her now… and yet as he holds his body carefully over hers entirely his golden eyes lock in her dark brown ones… and what he sees terrifies in. Her face is tilted up towards him, her lips locked tightly, her entire face wide in a horror that had that horrific look of generalized fear and pain in it once again, nothing specific aimed at him, and her dark brown wide eyes were glazed. She was gone, far off mentally, and the sight of it made his breathe catch. He had seen this look before, but never this intense, never with this much furry and anger and pain and horror. This was the look of the dead, but with a horrific force refusing to let the soul leave this world.

His hand slacked around her neck, and her reaction was quick enough to catch him off guard. He heard the sound of flesh against flesh before he felt the sting sear up his left cheek, and he was sitting on top of where she had previously laid, staring at her, his right hand gently pressed to his own left cheek as it was beginning to redden and swell. She was sitting up, their bodies no longer even close to touching as she clutched her legs tightly to herself with her right arm, her left arm still tense at her side from having slapped him. Her eyes were maddening, and he noticed too lately that his lips had parted slightly at this reaction. She was no longer far away, but burningly intense as she glared at him, her entire body shivering with an anger he had rarely seen humans capable of.

"Do. Not. Ever." She hissed at him, the gentle tone that had so baffled him earlier a memory that no longer even existed, "Touch. Me." Her intense eyes were locked on him, and yet he could still taste that generality about her. She had been exactly like Rin, but in an entirely different way. It wasn't life that had hurt her, and for a moment Sesshoumaru finds himself wondering if that life would have been better. She reacted like an animal, and waiting only a respectable pause between her words and his own he responded.

"Forgive me." She relaxed noticeably at his baritone words, her tense arm going loose at her side as she let her legs slip slightly out of her protective embrace, "I do not know your world."

It was by far the most he had said to her yet, and slowly she allows herself to relax entirely once again. It had been a while since she had been worked up like that, and as her heart pounds in her throat and her breathing stays heavy, a single thought dances into her mind about the last time she had panicked and how careful he was around her now that he knew the truth. That he of course, was John… and John wasn't here right now. The memories rush around her as his name sinks in, and she drops her head in lose as she struggles with the rush of it.

"Sesshoumaru, will you take me to my home?"

xXx

AN: Holy cow guys, I'm so sorry about not updating sooner. Thursday I had a committee meeting for some hiring committee I'm involved with at my University, and today was spent catching up on homework and prepping for exams (it's what I get for being a mathematics major *sighs*). Hopefully I'll be able to get another chapter posted before I go to bed, and I have to apologize for any errors in the writing or any inconsistencies. I'm trying my best to keep things stable, but I'm also writing as I go along so as new ideas pop up I'm just putting them in there and running with it. I would like to go back and do a final edit for myself one day, but I'd post that up on my personal blog rather than here (not that I don't love FFN, I just feel like if I'm going to spend a lot of time doing a final edit, which will add a lot of new scenes and new details and change a lot of content, then I want it on my own personal blog for personal/selfish reasons) Hope that's okay 3

Anyway, hope ya'll enjoy this chapter! Please read, review, share, let me know about it, and enjoy! =D

~Chey


	11. Chapter 11

Rayne's scent had been crisp and easy to follow inside the university, but as John stepped out into the world beyond the tiny campus his newly heightened senses had been easily and swiftly overwhelmed by the barrage of new smells outside. The world smelled entirely different, both all too sweet and disgusting at the same time. His newly furnished body was unable to handle it, and it had taken him countless hours as the sun begun once again the rise over the horizon to control the nausea and pain that besieged his body. It was barely six in the morning when he finally found stability again, and with a mind working faster than he was able to consciously keep pace with he found himself running down the streets towards Rayne's apartment. He had been there once, many months ago, when the two of them had to meet for an emergency meeting about Rayne's research.

As he stepped into her dark apartment now the memories of that day assaulted him, the sweetness of her scent and the strange intimacy he felt at being this close to the source of her wrecking his body with chills he felt all more intensely. The apartment was just as obsessively clean as it had been there, and if it weren't for the two diplomas hanging in the living room with Rayne's name engraved on them in golden lettering he would have assumed this place to be uninhabited. He had been bewildered by the state of her apartment on his last visit, but now he stood in the doorway which he had easily pried open with his newly discovered strength stunned silent by it. He had assumed before that the cleanliness was simply a prepared statement on her part… but he hadn't been over in months, nor had he or anyone else he was aware of had made the suggestion that they would be stopping by any time soon and yet here the apartment sat in unnerving perfection.

With ease he glided into the home and up the stairs next to the kitchen, following his nose to her bedroom. The door was left open, and as he let himself grow accustomed to the scent of her he was drowning in he found himself once again shocked at the state of living. Even her bedroom was immaculate, besides for a slightly disheveled comforter on top of her bed. It was as if Rayne simply existed within a bubble in the apartment, never touching anything but leaving her scent on everything. She had lived here for almost five years now, and had still never truly settled in. The thought unnerved him.

It was only due to the sudden sharp ringing of a cell phone in his pants pocket was John forced away from his astonishment, and he answered the cellphone without breathing a word into the receiver. John's strangely slit eyes narrowed in annoyance at whatever it was the female voice on the other side of the phone was saying, and as a single band of morning light spilled across the bed John ran from the bedroom, down the stairs, and out of the immaculately clean apartment. Whether he liked the fact or not he was a puppet now. In return for the gift of being allowed to even hunt for the ancient demon and Rayne he had given up the very thing he had wanted so badly as a child, the freedom. He was a puppet of the church now, and when they called he responded with a 'Yes, Ma'am' and a bow.

The only trace left of John was his scent, still etched into every corner of the apartment but completely invisible to humanity. John never considered the ancient demon's position in the situation, his mind already set on the fact that Rayne wouldn't be allowed to return to her apartment of her free will even if she wanted to. The ancient demon had taken her, after all, as a power play and it was John's job to find her when his time allowed. He had no reason to assume the church would prefer him to play demon hunter elsewhere.

xXx

Sesshoumaru stood in the shadows of the tree line, staring after Rayne as she carelessly dodged metal beasts across the flat abysmal landscape that led to the monstrous wooden structure she had called home. It was a strange boxy thing painted a hideous color of blue that stretched too high into the heavens. Rayne had assured him it was just an 'apartment', and therefore her safe 'home', but he had doubted her every reassurance. It was a monstrosity, and as he watched her walk proudly before the metal beasts without even glancing at them he was shocked that she had managed to survive this world as long as she had without him. Still, he sat passively and had allowed her to command him into staying hidden. After all, she explained in a way that made his bustle with fury at her easy understanding of him, he was a proud Lord and it would do him no good to go prancing about exposed the way he was. He had reluctantly agreed, acting as if it was his idea to watch from the tree line in the first place.

He found himself relaxing as Rayne disappeared into the rather ugly home, and mentally cursed himself for having been tense in the first place. He should have felt no interest towards this human woman, and yet he couldn't deny the curiosity she brought out in him. He also had to admit to himself that he had no other goals in this strange new world. Even if he were to leave her behind and go off in search of his home, he feared he wouldn't find it… he feared even more that he would.

Rayne paid no attention to the tiny scratches that lined her front door, concentrating instead on what her plan of action was. The memories from last came at her in fragments, but all she knew for certain was that she had to find John once she got herself cleaned up. She mentally cursed herself for having never asked him for a personal cell number, and pondered briefly if she knew anyone else who would know how to get a hold of him before her mind came up blank. It wasn't until she was upstairs in her bedroom did a feeling crawl slowly up her spine, a strange sensation of wrongness she couldn't place.

Slowly, strangely cautious, she gathered the things she would need for a quick shower and began to make her way across her small hallway and into her bathroom. The bathroom was small, her toilet seated to the left of the sink and across from her just bearably large enough shower. She had never been one to enjoy soaking, and so the size of the tub had become a non-issue for her when she was picking out an apartment, but she had become accustomed to multiple quick showers over the past year.

She strips quickly, easing carefully out of her dirty and bloodstained clothes as her body continues to ache and complain loudly at her, the feeling of uneasiness yet to leave her. The shower hums to life as she prepares the water, steam building up quickly in the tiny room and condensation forming thickly on the mirror and small heavily distorted window just above the tub. The window went barely up to her thighs as she stepped over the ledge of the tub to stand under the stream of falling water.

The warm water was instantly comforting to her, and she turned slowly in the shower to give every inch of her body access to the warmth before working her fingers through her hair and carefully massaging the wounds on her neck and shoulder. She watched her feet as she worked, morbidly aware of the water as it darkened red. She worked diligently, only satisfied when the water ran clear once again. She wanted to shower and clean quickly, not wanting to risk taking too long with Sesshoumaru hiding across the street, and as soon as her body relaxed enough for her to feel comfortable again she turned the water off and pulled a fresh towel around her body.

She dried off as she moved back into her bedroom, drying her shoulder length dark brown hair after the rest of her body was dry, and while her hands worked the towel furiously about her hair she let herself sit on her slightly disheveled bed. The feeling of the sun warmed sheets against her bare bottom was strangely welcoming, especially after having slept outside on the bare earth, and she couldn't help but yawn widely as exhaustion once again overwhelmed her. She may have slept solidly through the entire night, but her body still screamed at her from the previous day's entirety.

Sesshoumaru was growing bored, and anxious, the longer Rayne took inside of her apartment. He watched diligently as the sun continued to crawl slowly up the horizon, still allowing his body time to grow accustomed to the new scents. The world around him no longer stunk like they had during the night, but the metal beasts continued to scream against his senses. They were too loud, smelled of burning acid, and now that he was aware that humans were sitting happily inside of them he was even more disgusted by him. In this reality the beasts were being happily, mindlessly controlled by humans, the role of human lover no longer a title left only to the dogs. He was also painfully aware of how alone he was. The only demons he had seen previously had been in that strange room, bowed to him as it should be… out here he was painfully obvious of being the only one of his kind. Rin had softened him before her death, and his eyes narrowed at the thought, once again reminded of her absence.

He could smell the creatures before he saw them, his eyes suddenly frantic as he scanned her home for the source. He could smell the power they radiated, strange burning creatures that reeked of ash and flesh. He could make out four of them, but it was the fifth scent that brought him to stand fully erect under the trees and flex the muscles of his hands. She smelled of bloody lilies, and he was only aware of the sound of her light landing onto the root of Rayne's apartment because his eyes told him a sound should have been made. She was thin and lithe, her body wrapped in a skin tight layer of black elastic. Her long, curly flaming red hair fell carefully around her shoulders and with a grin aimed so sharply at him he could feel the crawling of her eyes she brought her left index finger to her full lips and whispered a silent 'shhh'.

She moved swiftly across the roof, her body dancing and fluid and weightless as she dropped herself into a window. Sesshoumaru was in the air before his mind had caught up to the strange female's movements, landing heavily on the front pouch and easily breaking the front door free of its strange metal hinges. He fell awkwardly into the building, Rayne's scent assaulting him as another delicate scent twisted into his awareness. He shifted his body to chase the female up the stairs when a burning erupted painfully over his back, his skin blistering, peeling, and beginning to heal all within seconds of each other. He pushed himself completely into the apartment, turning with his back protected by the kitchen bar and faced his assailants. The sight of the stick like figures, their bodies dancing with blue hot fire, standing barely two feet tall and reeking of wet ash and flesh brought an amused chuckle to his throat as his back finishes repairing itself.

A crash exploded in Rayne's kitchen, her eyes shooting up from her dresser as a delicate and powerful hand locked around her mouth. She gasped out silently against the hand, a softer crash following the larger one. Her eyes found the mirror above her dresser, and locked on the woman who had taken hold of her. She stood at least a head taller than Rayne, her red hair unrealistically bright against her pale and flawless flesh. She looked as beautiful as the creatures that had freed Sesshoumaru had been, her red irises constantly shifting color from orange, black, to red again. A living pool of lava staring back at Rayne with a smirk as she held her against herself.

"Awww, it's a shame you're so cute… but you see, you have something we want, and we can't gather it without you." The red headed woman shrugged slightly, when Rayne saw her eyes widen as her attention turned to the bedroom door.

A heartbeat, a single throbbing heartbeat, pulsed within Rayne's chest and Sesshoumaru exploded into the bedroom. His chest was blistered and raw, bleeding and healing even as he lunged towards the woman that still held her. His silver hair was held back by the wind that rushed past his body, his pointed ears exposed to her for the first time, the two purple lines on his cheek matching the two lines exposed on his outstretch left wrist. She could just smell the intensity of his body, strength and power roaring with a musk that was purely male, as he passed her side and she could feel the woman being torn violently off of her before she was aware of being free.

Rayne collapsed painfully to her knees, cupping her hands over her mouth and chin as the stinking sensation of a burn spread through her. She couldn't see it now, but once things calmed down and she was able to study her own reflection she would see the small burn that had erupted across her mouth, check, and lower jaw as Sesshoumaru had attacked the woman, causing her to ignite her hand in fear and pain. For now she struggled against the tears, the pain almost unbearable as the power played across the flesh of her face.

Sesshoumaru locked his left hand around the red head's throat, tearing her off of Rayne and bashing her heavily against the back wall of Rayne's bedroom. He could see the plaster of the walls crack and splinter at his strength, and he snarled into the woman's face as blood pricked under his finger tips from her soft flesh. He could feel his own hand blistering and burning against her touch, the pain only serving to infuriate him further.

"Who are you?" His words were sharp in the hectic buzz of the room, a snarl laced on every word. When she continued to simply smirk maddeningly at him he smashed her body against the wall again, this time eliciting a delicious grunt of pain from her body.

Rayne had turned to watch the two of them as Sesshoumaru had spat out his question, and the sight of his blistered and blood caked bare back left her mind reeling. Even as she watched he was continuing to heal, and yet no matter how close his skin came to repairing itself completely a new spark would crawl through his spine and alight the flesh on fire again. She could also count the burn marks on the tail he still had wrapped loosely around his waist, the once mark-free and snow white color of his fur seared black in places. The entire sight of it made her own body ache, there was no way he wasn't in anguish.

"I know you well." Her voice shocked them both, Rayne more deeply than Sesshoumaru. Her voice was deep, laced with a vitriol that conflicted wholly with the almost playful smirk on her lips. "You are the 'Lord of the West'." She laughed the words at him, a bitter and empty sound that brought Sesshoumaru's claw tighter around her neck until Rayne was sure she could make out the pathetic sound of slowly crushing bones… her assumption was reassured as blood began to drip from the woman's mouth, and still the woman in black smirked… her red hair beginning to ignite from the tips.

"Who are you!?" Sesshoumaru shouted at her now, suddenly furious at not just this women or the situation but every aspect of his existence at the moment. It was maddening, disgustingly so, to not understand the world, to not even know who you were any longer, and to have no idea where you were going next and all of these emotions built up into the tips of his fingers as poison began to melt into her flesh. Still she continued to smirk… and Sesshoumaru was aware of why too late.

He could hear Rayne screaming as the woman's arm exploded onto him, inhuman flames dancing across his body and easily burning through his skin far quicker than even he was capable of regenerating. He let go of the woman the instant he had been attacked by her flaming appendage and even as he fell back from her and onto his knees he could see her smirking at him. Her entire head was bathed in flames now, the white of her eyes a horrific solid black as her pupils burned into her skull. She smiled horrifically at them, her lips spread to reveal her sharp fangs, and even as she stood there the flames continued to envelope her entire body until she was engulfed completely. With a sudden movement she jumped backwards, shattering through the window she had easily melted through before, and then she was gone as if blown clean away by the very wind.

Sesshoumaru's right shoulder and chest were still burning, the fire gone but his flesh continuing to blister and blacken as the attack continued to ravage him. His vision was blurring as the pain began to numb his body, and he saw Rayne hovering above him, frantic… worried. She worried for him, her expression more mature and knowing that Rin's had been… but the worry all the same. The last thing he saw was Rayne mouthing his name, repeatedly.

xXx

AN: Woot! Got the chapter completed! Hope ya'll enjoy it, and I am starting on the next chapter this very moment so it should be posted tonight as well! We're finally passed the boring bits! Yay!

Please please also check out my personal blog Chey Chats (link found in my profile) where you can find other bits of my writing as well as a brand new introduction to Modern Day Demon.

Share, enjoy, and please review and let me know what you think!

~Chey


	12. Chapter 12

"Sesshoumaru, Sesshoumaru!" Rayne was frantic, she could feel her mind peeling as the world raced around her and the beautiful creature before her allowed his eyes to fall closed as his body went limp. She could see the wounds getting worse on his chest, the burns deepening into third degree territory before her eyes.

"…it's fire…" The realization hit her like a slap, and before she knew what she was doing she was on her feet and dragging Sesshoumaru awkwardly into her bathroom. His body was surprisingly heavy, and she was forced to get into the tub first and pull him into her lap, careful to keep her own flesh from touching any of the spreading wounds on his. She wasn't sure what would have happened, if this invisible fire was even capable of spreading, but the way it acted reminded her of a spreading virus and the last thing she could risk was dying before she could save him.

She struggled under Sesshoumaru's weight to turn the water on, the shower beating against their bodies and splashing off of his body to wet the rest of the bathroom. She noticed, relieved, that as the water washed away the blackened flesh on his chest and right shoulder his wounds finally began to heal and stay healed and despite the shocking cold of the water she found herself relaxing immensely against him. She sat with her own shoulders pressed against the tub spout, Sesshoumaru's back pressed awkwardly against her chest with her feet hanging out of the tub and his legs strewn about hers over the edge. There was no way to put anything besides his upper body into the tub in this position, and as she watched the fur of his tail become saturated and the dye of his black pants begin to bleed into the water she found herself thankful that even this had worked. She had no reason to assume that this kind of fire was just as weak against water as its more human cousin, and yet as Sesshoumaru's flesh healed and became near flawless before her again she found herself thankful that it was.

Carefully she turned the water off once again, sitting there underneath the dead weight of his body for long moments. Hoping naively that this would be enough to bring him back to consciousness, and if it weren't for the steady rise and fall of his bare chest… now moist with cold water that brought his nipples to firm attention, she would have assumed him to be dead.

"Sesshoumaru…please wake up now…" She murmured to him, her own body beginning to protest against the painful position. No movement, nothing besides his steady breathing… and slowly she allowed herself to rest her head against his freshly healed shoulder. The scent of him washed through her awareness, and she found herself tangling the fingers of her left hand into his soaked silver hair while her right palm rested against his right side.

"Sesshoumaru… come on… this isn't fun anymore…" She whispered, her eyes staring off into the emptiness of the bathroom beyond the shower, and as she closed her lips she noticed a shift in his breathing that sent shivers down her spine. He sucked in air slowly, held it as if tasting the various scents locked within, and released it just as slowly before continuing to breathe normally. She stayed as still as possible, painfully aware that her heart had begun to beat faster. Sesshoumaru could hear the harder pounding, but stayed still within her embrace as well. He was only mildly aware of a deep cold that had settled around him, a coldness that shied away at every part of his body she was touching. He was aware of every inch of her against him, but made no motion to expose this truth to her.

"…Rin…" He murmured the name before thinking, mentally cursing himself as it slipped from his lips, and he could feel her body tense against him.

"…I'm sorry… I'm not Rin…" Her voice was softer still, filled with a tone he comprehended as true regret. She was actually apologizing for not being who he had originally assumed she was.

"I know." His baritone was sharp again, and he could feel her sigh softly. Whether in reaction to his words or the very sound of him he was unsure.

"I mean… I'm sorry… I don't know who this 'Rin' was, but every time I catch you looking at me you have this look in your eyes that tell me you should know who I am… but you don't… or you do, but don't know it. I'm not sure. I just know that I've seen yours, for a solid year that I am aware of but I'm sure I've seen them before…" She trailed off, her long winded confession hanging heavily between them. She wasn't sure why she was talking, why she wasn't just forcing him up so the two of them could move on to wherever moving on would bring them.

"My younger brother was in this situation." His baritone voice was expressionless, bored even, and yet Rayne found herself holding her breathe as he spoke. Part of her had gotten used to his endless silence, and she felt as if she had just gotten unnaturally close to a skittish animal… any sudden movements and he would once again return to silence, "His mate was the reincarnation of his previous lover."

He fell into silence again, and Rayne shifted uncomfortably. His words had been loaded, and she was sure that that was the end of that conversation. He was nothing if not intelligent, and as he felt her struggle to get comfortable again under him he pulled himself from the tub. His movements were unnervingly swift again, and he turned back towards her with his left hand stretched out towards her. She stopped attempting to struggle to her own feet as he reached out for her, bending slightly to come within her reach, and she could feel his golden eyes staring at her intensely. Water beaded and slipped down his bare chest, droplets falling from his long hair as it began to air dry, and she suddenly felt breathless at the sight of him.

"Name?" His voice sunk deeply into her as she reached out to accept his hand, and he pulled her to her feet with an efficiency that left her shivering.

"Rayne, my name is Rayne." She stepped from the tub, and found herself staring up into his golden eyes, his bare chest mere inches away from her. She could feel the heat radiating off of him, and found herself quite willing to believe that he had been a great lord once. "Sesshoumaru, what are you?" Her voice was breathless, and she found she could taste the beat of her heart in her throat.

"I am an inu youkai." He waited for comprehension that never came to her face before he continued, "Your kind has taken to calling me a demon." He took a step back from her, easily moving in the tiny space without having to watch where he walked.

Sesshoumaru let her pass first, following her down the stairs in silence. He was almost uncomfortably aware of her fresh clothes, which were now damp and clinging to her body provocatively, and her fresh scent. She smelled clean, and he followed her into the living room where she paused to dig around in a much smaller room she didn't even fit in. She pulled out two towels, and with a slight grin he wasn't even aware she knew was on her face she tossed one to him and proceeded to rub the towel on her hair.

"What were those creatures that attacked?" She asked as she turned her back to him, peeling her wet shirt off her body along with her bra. She had hoped she wasn't so soaked that she would need to change, and she did her best to ignore his golden eyes on her. She had to focus right now.

"Demons. I've never encountered their kind before." He mimicked her motions with the towel on his own hair, watching her with a bored intensity. He could make out scars crisscrossing on the skin of her back, faded and perhaps as old as her body but still painfully noticeable, and once again he found himself thinking about the reaction he had brought out of her when she had forbidden him from touching her again.

"I'm guessing they have something to do with those demons that freed you from the golden box then." She wrapped the towel around her chest and turned back to face him, her dark brown hair a pleasant shade of black with the dampness, curled and resting gently against her shoulders. Her dark brown eyes stared at him, lost in thought before she walked past him and back up the stairs.

He watched her ascend the stairs, working the towel on his own chest and finally comfortable enough to begin examining his large mokomoko-sama. The poor fur of his body had been compressed by whoever had sealed him away and forcibly wrapped around his waist like some kind of bonsai project. Gently he works his fingers through the fur, fluffing the fur until it was restored to its previous glory and pinching out the parts of it which had been burnt in the previous fight. He only glanced up from his job as Rayne began to descend the stairs once again, dressed in a flowery dark blue blouse that highlighted the curves of her body… the plunging neckline drawing his attention almost playfully.

"Here, I occasionally wear large men's shirts as night gowns and this one looks like it might fit you." She held up the long sleeved dark black shirt, covered in very faint vertical lines.

Sesshoumaru watched her as she walked towards him, obeying her motions carefully as she helped his hands through the long sleeves which were then uncomfortably buttoned at the wrist. She smiled up at him, a gentle look that pained him with a deep sense of loss, as she buttoned the rest of the buttons on his chest. Her delicate fingers moved swiftly, and when the job was done she took a step back from his to admire her handiwork. He felt uncomfortable, and she must have seen the expression on his expressionless face for he heard her chuckle.

"You look handsome Sesshoumaru, I'm sorry it feels so uncomfortable." That voice again, too damn nice for her own good. He simply nodded and returned to working on his mokomoko-sama, finally wrapping it twice around his right shoulder when he was satisfied with the restoration. He looked at Rayne now, her eyes following the large mass of fur that was as high as his eyebrows at his shoulders and fell down to just below his knees behind him.

"It's bearable." His baritone voice sank into her once again, and she smiled at him when the burning tore into her face again. His eyes narrowed, he had noticed the burn earlier but she hadn't made any mention of it still hurting her after the shower. Swiftly he closed the distance between them, his left hand finding her chin gently. Her smile dropped, any sense of pain slipping away from her mind as her body buzzed at his soft and unexpected touch. For a brief moment he braced himself to be slapped again, and when the hit never came he brushed his index finger across her lips. He felt her body shiver under his touch, but his face gave away no knowledge of it.

"You will want to be careful. The skin may peel." He spoke calmly, and felt her nod before he released her chin again. He never took his golden eyes off her, and she found herself purposely avoiding his gaze as her mind spun around her.

"Thank you…" She muttered before finally collecting herself again, a struggle he could visualize her fighting before she looked up at him with a new determination in her dark brown eyes. The kind of eyes that knew too much. "They seem to be searching for you by following me, we need to get out of this damn town."

She only grimaced in pain slightly as she smiled up at him again, a strange twinkle in her eyes he instinctually didn't trust, "Ever been in a car before, Sesshoumaru?"

xXx

AN: Woo, trucking right along now. Next chapter finally reveals the plot of this story, and we'll be moving steadily from there. Hope ya'll are still enjoying this! I know it sure is getting difficult to write lol but it's fun, and I'm excited about going back and publishing a final cut on my person blog (Chey Chats, link found in my profile).

Also: If you read Chapter 11 before today, be sure to go back and make sure you had read the finished/completed version. There isn't too much that you missed, but enough to make this chapter seem random.

Please read, enjoy, share, and review!

~Chey


	13. Chapter 13

He stood easily at six foot four, his delicate steps betraying the size of him as he followed the thin trail of ash through the dying forest. He could smell the singed foliage before he saw it, his silver eyes narrowing on the female body he nearly stumbled over. She was covered in her own ash, her red hair a mess around her naked body. She always had been reckless, and as he lowered himself to his knees at her side he couldn't stop himself from admiring her small body. She was young, even by human standards, barely twenty years old this July and while it was only a month away he couldn't help but think of her as a reckless child. She enjoyed too thoroughly sticking her neck into situations she wasn't ready for. His short black hair bristled in the soft wind, and with an exasperated sigh he pulled her naked figure into his arms and stood with her clutched to his chest. She had always been exceptionally light, even considering his great strength, and he had always admired her lithe and capable body. She would make someone a very lucky man one day, if only she managed to survive that long. Despite the fact that her pale flesh was free of blemishes besides the natural red burn marks of her heritage he could smell the other demon on her. A dog demon, from lands he didn't recognize. He could also smell the stench of human on her, and the way her body had been ceremoniously left for dead only pointed to a single possibility.

He was unaware of the blond woman that watched him from the shadows, a smirk on her lips as she disappeared from the forest. She had accomplished her goal, and as the thin white paper with the black characters painted thickly on it crawled up her left arm she felt immensely satisfied with herself.

xXx

Rayne drove slowly down the dark highway, her headlights catching the occasional insect and far off billboard but nothing else of interest. Sesshoumaru sat silently next to her in the passenger seat, clutching uncomfortably to his mokomoko-sama as he glared out the window to count the trees that sped past them. Getting him to agree to being inside of this 'metal beast' as he had put it had been equivalent with getting a child to give themselves a shot. He never screamed, or fought, but had simply stared at her with his golden eyes. It took her agreeing to let him first examine the beast while it was 'sleeping', followed by allowing him to be inside of it, followed by turning it on while he watched from a safe distance, leading up to him finally sitting in it for a solid two hours while she had explored Walmart and picked up a handful of things she considered necessary for their journey.

Once he had finally settled into being acceptable with the PT Cruiser, she had driven past her old college campus only to find it deserted and marked off with police tape. She didn't trust her luck, and after a quick drive through the parking lot revealed to her no sign of John she had driven off. She had to trust that he was alright, and focus on what was necessary now. For some reason, whatever they reason was, she had demons chasing after her now… and for some reason she couldn't just hand over Sesshoumaru, despite the fact she didn't doubt he'd be able to fend for himself far better than she would be able to. Sesshoumaru, for his part, had seemed just as unwilling to leave her alone, and so there they were, stuck in an utterly silent car because he had been furious with the radio heading towards the only place she even had an inkling to return to.

The sun had fallen from the sky at least an hour before Sesshoumaru had finally spoken up, the sudden sound of his baritone voice causing her to grip slightly harder on the steering wheel than she had been.

"Where are we going?"

"Before I tell you that, let me tell you something else about myself." Rayne smiled quickly at him, glad to see that he was in fact watching her and she wasn't just beginning to grow paranoid with how she constantly felt his golden eyes on her. He simply nodded for her to continue.

"I was born in a small town, back in the late 80's. My mother was barely sixteen…" She paused and glanced over at Sesshoumaru, unsure if he understood her world's ages, "…my mother was still a child, not even old enough to live outside of her parents' home." He nodded at that, showing her that he understood, "Anyway," She turned her attention back to the empty road behind them, only the occasional car driving towards them on the other side of the highway, "...my mother got involved with an older man who was extremely mean to her, and after she gave birth to me… well…"

Sesshoumaru watched a sadness crawl into Rayne's face, and for a brief moment felt a sense of intimacy settle into him. This was a story she had never spoken of to anyone before him, he could see it in the way she fidgeted… afraid of his judgment, and her own.

"Speaking makes it real." His words were strangely soft for him, and when she glanced over at him she saw his attention once again focused on the world outside of his passenger window.

"Yes, yes it does." She sighed softly, collected herself again, refusing to acknowledge the burning in her dark brown eyes, "My mother was killed shortly after I was born, and I was left alone with…" She trailed off, and again Sesshoumaru could taste the pain in her… this time overlaid with a fear he felt she herself wasn't aware of.

"Father." He finished for her, and she nodded. He was watching her reflection in his window, all too aware of how his constant gaze made her tense and shiver unperceptively. There was something beautiful is listening to her open herself to him like this, two strangers forced together simply because destiny had a cruel sense of humor… and yet there was something more to it… they both felt themselves all too comfortable in each other's presence, as if they had been there before… and as if they belonged just like that. For a brief moment he wondered if his younger brother would have ended up with his mate even sooner if he hadn't been so determined to keep her separate from his mate's corpse.

"I survived with him for too many years, and found myself confiding in a single person who was always capable of making me feel… okay…" He could feel the strange tension in her, her normally kind to a fault voice suddenly dark and far off. As if she was speaking blankly about something she tried desperately to keep herself from feeling. He also knew that this 'single person' was who they were going to see.

"Why is this human so far away?" His eyes narrowed as even her scent darkened, and he could smell tears as they crawled unseen down her cheeks. He was overwhelmed with the urge to comfort her, a strangely disgusting emotion that left him cutting his claws into his palms as he squeezed his hands in his lap.

"This 'human' killed my father when I was seventeen after an especially eventful evening." She laughed, a bitter and cold sound that rasped painfully from her throat, "But that isn't why I'm going to see him. He was always into this paranormal, non-human, stuff and I figured with John gone he'd be the best place to look."

"We can find John." He wanted to add that he was willing to help her find John if it meant being in a situation that made her more comfortable than finding this other unnamed friend of hers, but he couldn't find the words for it.

"No, we have to get you out of that town. As far as I'm aware no one will be able to follow us here. Even John didn't know where I spent my childhood, and I'm hopeful that even if Raiden doesn't live there anymore we can find someone else who knows where he went and how we can get in contact with him."

"Raiden?"

"Mhm, and be warned. He might take a liking to you." She chuckled at that, amused as she felt Sesshoumaru's eyes crawl over her to once again lock intensely on her face as she turned off on an exit, leaving the dark highway behind them as she pulled into the parking lot of a quiet motel just off the exit. "But, as of right now, Sesshoumaru," his ears perked at the use of his name, and he found himself growing to enjoy the sound of her voice, "I'm exhausted, and we are still a good six hour drive away from my home town, so if you don't mind. We're going to sleep here for the night."

Sesshoumaru followed her eyes to look out the window shield, his eyes falling on a two story building covered in doors and windows. A strange misshapen inn. Something in his stomach twinged as she got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, and he waited silently for her to open the passenger door as well. He pulled himself out of the car, denying her offered hand not out of rudeness but simply because he didn't need her help, and something about the strange intimacy shared in the car earlier left him weary of touching her any time soon. She didn't seem to care, clearly not allowing his rejection of her help get to her as she turned on her heels and began walking towards the motel main lobby. He followed behind her diligently, still not used to the unease he felt at having to be the follower for the first time in his existence.

xXx

AN: I'm hoping for a little bit of smut finally in the next chapter, but sadly the two of them are still a ways away from anything truly delicious happening between them. I am trying to build this up as realistically as I can manage considering there are demons and *spoiler alert* evil churches.

Anyways, hope ya'll enjoyed!

Please read, share, enjoy, follow, and let me know about it in a comment!

~Chey


	14. Chapter 14

John dropped to his knees before the young blond woman. She was sitting in a large, solid black chair. She sat with her legs crossed, her long bright blond hair tied back into a high pony tail that fell across her shoulders and back. She wore knee high thick black industrial boots, large silver buckles lining the front of them, buckles which disappeared underneath her white khaki pants. Her upper body was decorated with a long sleeve loose white shirt, a red cross embroidered over the right side of her chest. It was decorative while at the same time looking almost solemn. She smiled pleasantly down at John as he kneeled to him, waving happily at his formalities.

"John, no need to bow your head to me." He looked up at her, his strange red swirling pale blue eyes locked with her own pale red ones. She wore no makeup, his cheeks naturally flushed against her pale flesh and her eyelids naturally darker than the rest of her flesh… an illusion that mimicked eye shadow, and yet they all believed her when she told them she had never decorated her body against God's wishes.

"I have killed the target according to your direction, Lady Red." John's normally vibrant voice sounded flat to her ears, the sound of musical victory to her well attuned ears.

"Very good, you please me." She smiled softly, a delight that never reached her pale red eyes, and tilted her head ever so slightly in his direction as her right hand cupped her chin gently. She fell into a deep silence that felt like consideration, and when her far away eyes locked on John again he could feel a strange tightening around his chest.

"Sadly, there is another target I need you to go after…"She watched John shift slightly, and forced herself to relax slightly in her chair, refusing to continue until John had sucked in another fresh breathe of air. "…a fire demon has found herself inappropriately involved with a small human town, and apparently there are two others there that consider themselves her… allies…" She said the word carefully, tasting every moment of it as it slipped like bile from her lips, "…can you handle that, John?"

His eyes narrowed briefly, before he fell into another bow before her, the pair of swords gleaming against his black shirt, held to his back by their makeshift leather bindings that tied them to his body. The black characters of the seals were still burned into the flesh of his arms, hidden underneath the long sleeves of shit button up shirt. He spoke softly, a breathless sound both of them could hear sharply in the large dark room, and for a brief moment John realized he could not feel the heat of the sun as the light spilled in through the large cathedral windows to spill across his body. The thought ceased to matter the moment it had slipped into his mind, and with a drawn expression he responded to his master.

"Yes, Lady Red."

xXx

"I found you out in the woods, Kaori." His voice was deep, and yet she could taste the affection on his lips as if she was drunk with it. It touched her, and she had to keep her face turned towards the floor besides her bed to prevent him from seeing that fact on her. She was far more than touched by his affection, she thrived on it. Nervously she works her delicate fingers through her flaming red hair, cutting her claws mindlessly through each tangle she encounters, ignoring the stands of hair that cling to her fingers and fall to her shoulders and lap.

"You really shouldn't do that with your hair. All you're doing is shredding it to bits all over my bed." He stepped closer to her, the scent of ash and fire bathing him warmly as he stepped into her presence. When he flustered her she only burned deeper.

"What do you care how my hair looks?" She turned her face to him, the sharp expression she had planned for him melting at the sight of his silver metallic eyes. He stared into her red eyes, and suddenly found the warmth of her cheek against the palm of his hand. He felt her shudder against the coolness of his flesh, a grin pricking at his lips as her watched her.

"I don't." He watched her eyes drop slightly, the grin only widening on his lips, "You're always beautiful, Kaori." He felt the blush burn across his fingertips before the red spread to her checks, and withdrew his hand slowly from her, his voice growing serious as he continued, "Now, how did you end up as injured as you were?"

"What do you mean?" Her eyes met his again, the blush fading into dark curiosity. "I had gone out to the woods to enjoy the sun, and had fallen asleep."

"You were covered in your ash." His face darkened, his eyes narrowing on her, begging for any sign of a lie… a trick… anything besides the impossibility that she really didn't know. "Kaori, you were naked in your own ash. You know that only happens when your kind completely burns up, and that only happens when your body is ready to die. You know you can only pull that trick off a few times before your core burns out."

"I… I know… but… I honestly don't know what you're talking about…" Her voice trailed off, and he could see a deep fear sinking into her eyes he had rarely seen in the young woman… in fact the last time she had let that look slip in front of him was when her parents had been killed by hunters. His heart dropped at it, she honestly didn't know.

"Strip." His voice was suddenly cold, and she knew without looking at him what he was expecting to find hidden somewhere on her body. "Leave your undergarments on, but take off the nightgown and lay back on the bed."

Kaori followed his directions carefully, well aware that he kept his eyes adverted as she stripped and lay back on the bed. He had no need for her to remove her undergarments, but as she had slept without a bra on she now lay completely exposed on the cover of the bed, the only undergarments to be seen her red panties. She breathed heavily, her chest rising and falling carefully as she struggled to control her breathing. It was a ritual her kind had become accustomed to over the years, and while she was consciously aware of being naked before this man for the first time since her body had begun to ache for his attention she felt no pleasure out of what was about to come.

His cold hands were shocking against the intense heat of her body, and his eyes softened as he looked into her face.

"Calm down, Kaori. It's alright. If we do find a mark…" He trailed off, and she could see the darkness he struggled to hide behind his silver eyes, "I won't let anything happen to you, I promise." He waited until she nodded and closed her eyes before he continued examining her body.

He started at her neck, tilting her head carefully to each side as he explored her warm flesh. He moved to her shoulders, and then carefully examined each inch of both of her arms. He had her sit up, helping her to the side of the bed as he explored her back, helping her to lie down once again as he glanced quickly over her exposed breasts and stomach. It wasn't until he was looking at her right inner thigh did he find what he had hoped so desperately to avoid.

There, burned into the hidden inner body of her right thigh was the ragged leaf bachelor's button… the blue flower that stood for anticipation. She felt his hands tighten against her leg, and he felt the heat of her body spike in return, knowing before he spoke a word that he had found the mark.

"How dark?" Her voice was firm, but he could feel the shiver within it.

"Almost faded." He answered quickly, just as firm and just as aware of his own shiver. "Come, we have to get you dressed and fine Raiden. This town is no longer safe." He pulled himself away from her, too terrified of losing his own composure to look at her. He was the strong one, he was her strength, and as he stared out the window into the bright mid-day world outside he couldn't help but feel pathetically human in this moment. He would never allow himself to admit it to her, but the thought of losing her made his own existence pointless.

She only nodded in response, and swiftly found her feet as she began to dress and gather herself quickly.

xXx

The sound of running water tip toed into his consciousness as he slept on the abnormally, and untrustingly comfortable bed he had been granted for the night. His eyes opened slowly, a heavy taste of drowsiness encrusted onto his body. He could smell the warmth sweetness of her scent as she showered, barely three feet away from his bedside and separated only by a thin wall. He could hear every sound she made, the soft humming in her throat and her hands working on her body. She was cleaning herself in a way that felt almost frantic, and he listened as her hands went still and she continued to rinse herself. For a moment a lump collected in his throat and he knew he wanted to see her.

Slowly he pushed himself from the bed, the thick covers clinging almost desperately to him as he fought them to the side. His bare feet touched the stiff cold carpet, a horrific almost puke green in color, and he rose carefully from the bed. The feeling, bare and naked against his flesh, was not unpleasant and still his body yearned for the comforting and familiar feeling of the grass back in his lands. He was naked expect for a strange article of clothing that covered his groin, something she had called 'boxers' that left him feeling teasingly exposed. He could still feel the air against his manhood, and found himself continually glancing down to make sure he was in fact covered up and at least as decent as he could manage with the rest of his flesh exposed. These boxers were multiple shades of blue and black, straight lines of color crisscrossing parallel and perpendicular to each other. They felt of some strange wiry material, nothing comparable to the soft sinks and highest quality cotton he was used to wearing… and yet there was something charming in them and in the way Rayne had pulled them out of her small black luggage bag with a smile playing on her lips, still tender from the quickly fading burn, and held them out to him as if they were almost sacred objects. He would not deny his dislike for them, but he had been touched by her determination in picking out time appropriate clothes for him.

His strange urge to see her now, as the water fell rhythmically in the shower, overwhelmed his urge to dress in the clothes she had folded and set aside for him on the dresser and he found himself stepping onto the linoleum lined bathroom. The door was left slightly cracked leading into the shower room, and he could feel the moist heat as he pushed it open cautiously with his left hand. The door swung inward silently, the moist heat exploding outwards as his skin became thick with her scent, and as Rayne turned the water off he could see the condensation around her falling to her feet, leaving her body exposed for him. She stood behind a glass box, and he could barely make out her form from the foggy emptiness… What he could make out left him breathless.

Her body was foreign to him, none of the familiar curves and dimples Rin had exposing themselves to him, and yet what she had instead was undeniable beautiful. Her body was a noticeable shade lighter than her face and arms, and even from this distance and this diminished clarity he could make out the tangle of scars that tainted her body. They traced up and down her back, some darker than her flesh and others a stark splash of raised white and as he stood there staring at her she turned in the shower to expose the front of her body to him.

He could hear her breathe catch, and once again braced himself for her unusually volatile outbreaks. Nothing came, and he found himself holding his breathe in tense anticipation. Slowly she moved, her left arm limp at her side as she pressed the palm of her right hand against the glass. He could see the moisture gather and spread at her touch as her fingers broke through the thick fog, water droplets collecting and dragging lines of clarity down the glass as they fell. Her dark brown hair was saturated and black, stuck against her head and neck. Her dark brown eyes stared at him, wide and strange to him, the most familiar part of her body staring into him as if she had never known him. The gaze ached him, and he swallowed the bitter pain they brought him stubbornly. Her chest was as scared as her back, if not more so, a single grotesque scattering of scars that resembled the ragged edges of broken glass sitting just below her rip cage in the center of her stomach. He could feel the horror that scar spoke of as he stared at her, watching her chest heave heavily as her breathe came out in struggled gasps.

She wasn't used to be looked at, yet alone the strange sense of admiration his golden eyes held as they traced over her body. She could feel them crawling over her, bringing goose bumps to her arms as she watched him intently, refusing to drop her eyes from his face. He could feel her struggling to remain calm, and as his eyes dragged over her breast he took in the sight of burn scars pressed into the flesh around her caramel colored areolas. He quickly took in the last of her, noticing slowly that the scar in her middle was the most recent… and he could feel his claws tense as the age slipped into his mind. It had to have been no more than six years old, if that. He quickly remembered their conversation in the car, and locked his golden eyes with hers.

His eyes were suddenly harsh against her own, and he could hear her shudder with it as her right hand slipped barely noticeably down the glass. It was those golden eyes she had seen so often within her nightmares, the eyes that haunted her. The look of far too much emotion and fury and pain. The look of adoration and something shattered. She suddenly wanted to call his name, to comfort him and give him some sense of reassurance, and yet as her lips parted to speak he turned his back to her and walked determinedly out of the bathroom his posture set and cold, leaving her mind and her heart racing.

xXx

AN: A little bit more character development and story line push, so yay for that!

I hope you are all still enjoying it, and I wanted to throw a shout of thanks out to SessRinz and kiki4life along with every one else who has decided to follow this story and leave comments! Thank you guys so much, it really means a lot to me to know there are people out there enjoying this!

So please, keep reading and enjoying, and letting me know about it! I love comments 3.

~Chey


	15. Chapter 15

He couldn't explain where the emotion was coming from, nor why he even felt it at the sight of the scars staining her otherwise perfect flesh. Nor could he explain why the sight of them did nothing to diminish her beauty to him, that strange and foreign appearance of her that did nothing to recall Rin to his mind and everything to force him to once again taste the sensations she left in him, unspoken and unexplored, when she had died. He was unaware of Rayne's presence in the bathroom doorway behind him until she spoke, her ability to sneak up on him and the painfully too gentle way she spoke both infuriating him further. She should be incensed at his inability to keep his curiosity to himself.

"Sesshoumaru," The way she spoke his name made him ache, and she was unfazed by the sudden low rumble that rolled through his throat at it, "What's wrong?"

How dare she ask him if he was the one that was okay. How dare she take it upon herself to continue being the 'kind' one when he was doing nothing to benefit her existence at this point. He was nothing but a leech on her presence now, a strange creature from a different world that clung to her out of desperation from being thrown into a reality he never wanted to exist in.

"You have no right to ask that." His deep baritone laced words came out harsher than he had meant them to, and he found himself biting on his lower lip in frustration as she tore into him, completely within her right.

"Oh, oh what? I don't have a right to ask that? Okay, then how about I just get furious and start throwing a temper tantrum like you because YOU decided it was within the boundaries of 'okay' to stalk me in the shower!?" Her sudden anger was arousing, a thought that swiftly burned through what little stability he had over his emotions. He turned on her suddenly, his golden eyes burning with too many things unsaid, every bit of pain and betrayal and confusion he felt spilling out onto her. Rayne saw the need to vent in every fiber of his stance, his muscles tense and twitching as he yelled at her, and he felt more admiration growing in his heart for her as she stood there and took it… understand even better than himself that he needed this.

"You have no right to be as upset as I am, human. I let myself fall weakness to one of your kind and ended up losing my entire world because of it. They burned everything too thoroughly to leave scars like whatever bastard had touched you. Rin… I was pathetic, and I paid for it." He breathed deeply, sucking in the acid scent of his own fury mixed with her delicate tenderness. "I was locked away, sealed for lifetimes in a suffocating blackness where I was spoken about and around as if I were nothing more than a statue, a prize from their 'conquering'. I knew Rin had died only from a deep sense within myself, seeing you standing there DARING to mimic her in the ways you do and REFUSING to remind me of everything great about her because you do it so much better is INSUFFERABLE. I despise you for it, and still cling desperately to you because I refuse to let you disappear from me again."

Sesshoumaru dropped his head, exasperated with his own control, chiding himself for exploding in front of a mere human girl in a way he had never allowed himself to explode even around himself. Her response, while comforting him, intensified his sense of shame.

"I'm sorry. I refused to think about how difficult it was for you because I knew I would never be able to imagine. I'm also sorry I remind you so much of the woman you used to love… may I… may I know what happened to Rin?" He looked up at her, his golden eyes losing themselves in the kindness of her dark brown eyes. She cared too much for her own good, and he didn't understand that she cared so intensely for others because she had so long ago learned it was better to stop caring about herself. The scars on her body prevented her from giving a shit where she was concerned.

"My lands were under attack by a foreign army. They were mortals capable of downing demons with a skill and ability unseen even in the mortal demon hunters, priests, monks, and priestesses in my own land. I sent Rin away, to protect her and myself. We both knew that having a human lover would be my downfall in the invaders ever found out." Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed on Rayne, and for a moment she could smell the smoke and fire from her final dream… the first dream when she had finally been able to make out Sesshoumaru's face in its entire beauty… the first time his face was more than just a bloody corpse that haunted her. He could see the shift in her dark brown eyes, the shift that told him she was seeing something far off… or remembering something from long ago… "They found her."

xXx

Up until that point in the war the human army had been unable to defeat Sesshoumaru. He was able to take them out by the hundreds, none of them capable of getting close enough to him to use their magic against him. The seals that had silenced an uncountable number of demons before him glanced off of him harmlessly. He had no idea who had let the secret slip about Rin, far too comfortable in assuming that every person who did know was too loyal to him to let the secret slip, and there was still no way to get a secret out of an individual who refused to slip.

Sesshoumaru didn't know about the bachelor's kiss mark they had found burned into his younger brother's neck when his armies had recovered the half-breed's body. He knew nothing about the rumors of a beautiful young foreign woman who had been seen with Inuyasha the night before his corpse was discovered. He had been sealed away within any knowledge about what had happened, the final image seared into his mind that of Rin… lying lifeless in his arms, her flesh already beginning to reek as the flames played at the fuel of her. Sesshoumaru had no idea that the messenger that ran for him had the same mark of the bachelor's kiss burned into the center of his back. He had no idea that the moment he left his kingdom defenseless the foreign mortal army had raided, swiftly taking control of it and eradicating the demons from his land. He had never seen the beautiful foreign woman, her outfit of white a cruel mockery of purity, sit upon the seat from which he ruled, a cruel mask of victory plastered onto the pale features of her face. Her blond hair flowing freely down her shoulders as the survivors fell to their knees before her.

xXx

Rayne had dressed as silently as she could manage while Sesshoumaru struggled with his own clothes. She tried to keep her mind busy, plotting the rest of the day as the clock struck 8 am on the bedside table. She couldn't help the occasionally glance towards him as she struggled with the clothes he had sworn to her had to be more simple than what he was used to wearing, but as he pulled himself out of the backwards shirt once again she couldn't help but chuckle. The glare he shot her at the barely audible sound rolled harmlessly off of her, and she smiled brightly at him as she finished tying the sash around her waist and stepped over to him to help.

"Well, you managed the pants alright, and your shoes are…. Well…" She glanced at his feet, the shoelaces a tangled mess, "…on…" She laughed, a bright and beautiful sound Sesshoumaru couldn't help but enjoy, "Here, let me help you with the shirt. I should have just picked out another button up one for you…"

He grunted, and whether it was a sound of agreement or not she couldn't tell, but he let her pull the insufferable collar over his head and straighten the shirt out correctly on his chest. It was a strange article of clothing, the long sleeves white instead of black like the rest of the shirt and a large and dramatic print of a dragon fighting what appeared to be a white tiger for some unimaginable reason printed on the chest. The scene was unimaginable to him simply because he couldn't comprehend a situation in which a dragon would lose a fight against an oversized cat. Unless of course the white tiger was in fact a demon, and of course that had to be the answer. Mortals weren't stupid enough to design a shirt that made no logical sense, or at least they couldn't possibly be that stupid.

"This is the type of clothing all twenty year olds wear in this world, I know you hate it." Rayne caught his expressionless eyes, and he couldn't help feeling a little uneasy being read as easily as she was capable of. Even if Rin had been that aware of his inner thought processes she had never said anything about it, and Rayne had clearly been raised in a world where keeping your mouth shut was seen more as a handicap than an asset. Strange new world.

He just stared at her in response, and she shrugged out of his gaze nervously as she packed away the previous days clothing in her single black luggage. Barely five minutes passed before they were both headed out of the motel room, the keys left on the dresser in the room. Rayne was pleased when Sesshoumaru found his seat in the passenger side of the car without protest, and the rest of the drive was silent. He was still emotionally exhausted, and she could tell from how he held himself that he felt no need, or desire, to speak any longer. She imagined that he had done enough speaking to last him a lifetime.

xXx

"Raiden, please come with us." The red head pleaded with the taller man. He stood at only five foot ten, the older man that stood beside the red head easily towering over the both of them with his massive six foot four frame. He was built far more solidly than the young man named Raiden, his dark black hair in stark contrast to Raiden's bright yellow hair, tinged with strands of blue. He looked nothing like his firey younger sister, besides their identical red eyes.

"I've made a home for myself, Kaori, I don't want to pack up and leave due to some silly demonic superstitions." Raiden's voice felt harsh to even the older man's ears, and Raiden's face softened noticeably as tears welled up in his younger sister's eyes.

"Kin, you understand don't you?" Raiden turned his attention to the older man, his silver eyes burying themselves into him. Kin simply stared back at him, his eyes a strange kind of harshness and betrayal Kaori had never seen in the older man before.

"No. I don't." His voice was hard, Raiden visibly recoiling at it. "Your sister needs you right now." His silver eyes narrowed, "I need you."

Kaori could see an unspoken moment pass between the two men, her heart aching ever so slightly at the glances they gave each other. She knew well enough that her older brother and the man she desired were far closer to each other than she would ever be allowed to know.

"Fine, but only because I love you both so much." Raiden smiled softly, exhausted. He never would figure out why he bowed so easily to the two of them. Having to leave this town he had lived in for the past two decades was going to be difficult… but he honestly couldn't say why he'd want to stay so badly. The only reason he had stayed before had left five years ago now.

There is a soft knock on the door then, Raiden laughing all too calmly over the situation while both Kaori and Kin narrowed their eyes at the young man.

"I'm afraid I have a guest though, so we'll have to delay our leaving sadly."

"Just get rid of them." It was Kaori who spoke now, and both of the men could feel the sudden heat radiating from her.

Raiden simply laughed, waving his right hand dismissively towards his sister, "Yes, yes, fine." His expression dropped as he opened the door, Rayne's scent hitting him before he had the door open enough to see her. Both Kin and Kaori looked on curiously, an eerie tension having fallen over the younger man.

"Rayne… what in the hell are you doing back here?" Raiden's voice was struggled, his playful attitude completely betraying him as he stared on in shocked silence… his expression resembling that of Sesshoumaru's after he had been slapped for the first time.

Rayne stood awkwardly in his doorway, her left arm behind her back as she waved weakly with her right hand. Sesshoumaru stood behind her and slightly to her right side, his golden eyes narrowed on Raiden as the scent of demon assaulted his senses. Whoever this childhood friend of hers was, he wasn't a human.

"I uh… came to see if uh… you could uh… well… help us?" Rayne stuttered horribly, biting her lip in that painfully adorable way she always managed to do when something had begun to bother her. The overwhelming sense of familiarity washed over Raiden as he watched her struggle, his long smothered emotions towards her bubbling painfully in his chest. She had matured nicely since the last time he had seen her, her body filling out in all the right places… and he was pleased to see the worst of the scars that had laced her neck and face were completely gone… when his eyes fell onto the fresh wound and slowly healing bruise on her neck though he felt himself grow weak.

"What the hell happened to you?" His eyes were locked on the wound, and Rayne found herself quickly covering it with her left hand as her right fell back to her side. The blush that crawled up her cheeks made him think of a small child that had been caught with their ears listening to something they shouldn't have.

"That's uh… what I needed your help with… please?"

"Hey, Raiden, are you gonna introduce us to your friend?" Kaori's voice rang out from the doorway behind Raiden, and his shoulders slumped slightly as he stepped aside to reveal her.

Sesshoumaru recognized the red head immediately, the image of her bursting into flames lighting up in his mind as he pushed Rayne aside just as Raiden was introducing her.

"Rayne, this is my younger-" Raiden was cut off as Sesshoumaru lunged past him into the home, his right hand locking around Kaori's throat quicker than Rayne had even been able to seen. One moment he had been behind her, and the next he was inside of Raiden's home, holding Kaori off the ground by her throat.

Sesshoumaru was only mildly aware of the fresh blisters crawling onto his hand and up his arms as her flesh burned into him, her eyes wide in horror and lost in his. It was the cold metal pressed against his own throat that drew his attention away from his prey, only his golden eyes shifting as he found Kin standing next to him. The man stood equal in height and presence next to him, the scent of a powerful and older demon wafting almost pleasantly into Sesshoumaru's nose. The black haired man's face was expressionless, no anger… no fear… no intimidation. It was nothing more than two lords staring calmly at each other as if doing nothing more than playing a rather boring round of chess. Both outmatched and outwitted by the other. Sesshoumaru was immediately in awe of the older man, and greatly wished that the two of them could have could together under different circumstances.

Rayne, on the other hand, found herself staring in horror at the older man. She had never before seen a human of his stature, and the blade he had pressed calmly against Sesshoumaru's neck was piercing out of his very arm… his hand curled in a fist to hold the blade steady… as if the metal was part of his very forearm. The glint of the metal matched the very color of his eyes, and she suddenly felt very overwhelmed… as if she had been dragged into a world she never wanted to know existed outside of her very worst nightmares.

"Let her down. Now." Kin's voice was hard, almost as deep in tone as Sesshoumaru's and easily as powerful… if not more so… He had grown up in this world Sesshoumaru still found foreign, he understood this reality in ways the dog demon would never be able to and that terrified him. His body, however, refused to betray this and in fury his hand tensed around Kaori's neck… the blade from Kin's arm drawing pinpricks of Sesshoumaru's blood in return.

xXx

AN: Oh my god, guys. I have to be honest with you. Writing this chapter was a fucking bitch. Literally. I finish it, was all happy and ready to upload when Pandora crashed on me... okay, no biggy right? Then word decided to freeze up. It ended up crashing twice, then chrome crashed, and then word crashed again all while attempting to save this single damn chapter. I was panicking thinking I lost all my work, starting freaking out. Then my computer crashed, had to restart it, and brought word back up and guess what!? I only lost a single sentence, woot! But man am I still tense as hell. I'm going to go shower.

Ya'll better enjoy this one, and please, please comment. Convince me the stress was worth it, because oh my jeebus that was scary. :p

Please, love, read, enjoy, share, follow, and comment!

~Chey


	16. Chapter 16

"That's the woman from before, the one who broke into my apartment!" Rayne hisses at Raiden, his face only betraying an expression of mild amusement at the scene that had unfolded in his house. What a strange day this was turning out to be, and he couldn't help but sigh to himself.

"Kaori has the maiden's kiss. If she was the one to attack you, which I doubt seeing as how you are both alive," Kin spoke slowly, his eyes refusing to waver from Sesshoumaru's face as the ancient dog demon growls deeply in his throat at Kin's words, "she did not attack of her own free will."

"Maiden's Kiss?" The anger had slipped from Rayne's voice, her eyes locked on the strange male demon still holding his blade against Sesshoumaru's throat.

"Yep, the mark of a bachelor's kiss. It's a sort of virus for demons." Raiden answered her question now, his voice still uncomfortably subdued considering the situation.

"Show me." It was Sesshoumaru who spoke up now, his deep voice slicing through the tension with the skill and precision of a surgeon's blade. Rayne could see the other male nod, barely perceptible to her human eyes, and yet Sesshoumaru dropped Kaori to collapse to her knees on the floor, her hands rubbing her bruised and already healing neck.

"Fucking animals… no wonder we've evolved beyond that…" Kaori muttered angrily to herself, rubbing her neck gently as her flesh stitched itself together with a barely audible hiss of flame. Sesshoumaru simply grunted towards her, either amused or proud of her comment, and Kin lowered his blade, Rayne watching in stunned silence as the sharp metal retreated back into his flesh.

Kaori was back to her feet in mere moments, pulling her baggy jeans up from her right leg to expose her inner thigh. Rayne found herself standing on her tippy toes and leaning awkwardly past Raiden to follow Sesshoumaru's eyes to the young woman's skin… where her eyes fell upon the mark. It was easily the size of her own hand, the petals of the flower torn and ragged, the entire mark a ghostly scar in the otherwise perfect flesh of the red head.

"What is it?" Rayne could feel her voice in her throat, the tone meaningless to her ears. She felt oddly disgusted by the sight of the virus, as Raiden had called it, as if she knew somewhere inside how bad it really was, despite the fact she hadn't even known about the existence of demons until barely three days before.

"The Maiden's Kiss." It was Kin who spoke this time, his tone only a few notches softer than Sesshoumaru's. Rayne glanced only briefly towards him as he spoke, his silver eyes locked on her face as their eyes met… he was determined to avoid the sight of Kaori's mark. "What do you know of the church, human?"

Rayne shivered at his use of the term 'human', his voice laced in a malice she had never heard before. It wasn't disgust, or hate… but the kind of tone used by victims to describe the very monsters they were terrified, and she could see Sesshoumaru look towards Kin with a narrowed bemused expression, as if he hadn't been expecting the other demon to use the term in such a derogatory way.

"I know the church… is widely respected amongst… humans…" The term felt foreign against her tongue, and for a moment she could feel a strangely amused glance creep over her body from Sesshoumaru, but by the time she turned to return the gaze he already had the back of his head to her and was studying Kaori's mark more closely now, having dropped completely to his knees and using his right hand to explore the mark in a manner that forced a blush to her face. Kin noticed the blush, and for a brief moment wondered if that dog demon's hands had been on her in a similar, more intimate way, previously. Rayne most certainly reeked enough of the dog for him to believe the notion.

"Respected is a lose term. Even humans fear them." Raiden spoke up now, his frame casually leaning against the doorframe of his still open front door. "They were humans bred to kill demons, nothing more and nothing less. In fact, that was why we evolved."

Rayne turned to Raiden, caught up in her human ways of showing respect by watching a listening speak. She was unaware of the fact the demons in the room found her human ways amusing, and were purposely jumping the conversation around the two males involved for their own amusement as she constantly turned herself around to watch each one speak.

"You may notice we look different than your dog here." Kin spoke again, his eyes motioning towards Sesshoumaru as Rayne turned to face him while he spoke, a silent grin on his lips at her almost cute attempt to show respect to them. Sesshoumaru, for his part, simply removed his hand from Kaori and stood, watching the fire demon as she pulled her pant leg back down, her red eyes far away and sad in an almost human matter he found himself uncomfortable watching. He was also, however, listening intently to the other two males discuss this new world. It was the most information Sesshoumaru had been able to absorb since waking up in this strange reality, and he too was curious as to why all of the demons, besides those that had bowed to him upon his awakening, were so different from those he remembered.

"Animal demons are easily picked out from humans, and the church easily eradicated the weakest of them first." Raiden was speaking now, and Rayne appeared to have finally figured out their game as she simply stood still… either she had figured out the source of their amusement… or she had locked her attention on Sesshoumaru, who had locked his own golden eyes back on the human girl. She could tell he was absorbing every word of the other two males, and found herself lost in the intense gaze of his curiosity. It was a burning, beautiful sight, and all four of the demons could hear the hitch in her breathe as Sesshoumaru's eyes finally met hers.

"Their painted features, delicate bodies, and obvious furs," Kin motioned towards Sesshoumaru's mokomoko-sama. "Gave them away all too easily in this strange new world."

"I saw dog demons, when I awoke here." Sesshoumaru spoke up now, his eyes refusing to leave Rayne's face, and the two males both nodded in unison.

"There is a pack that lives up north, you must have been awoken by them for a reason. Perhaps they even felt you were their last chance at surviving this brave new reality." Raiden spoke, softly, his own eyes locked at the dog demon… a strange tenseness in his stomach biting at him as he watched the way the older demon watched Rayne…

"A few managed to survive, and I know of a few foxes who are able to more or less blend in with human society. However," Kin began, before Kaori spoke up… the harshness of her tone and the felinity of her voice shocking everyone into silence.

"They were easy targets. Pathetic. We evolved, those who could blend in perfectly surviving longer. We lost our tails and ears, our claws filing away to pathetic hands and fingers… and we burst into flames instead," Even Rayne could feel the heat that erupted suddenly from Kaori's body, fading just as quickly into welcome coolness as the young woman continued to speak, "The church was desperate to continue their eradication."

"They came up with the Maiden's Kiss." Raiden sighed heavily, running his fingers through his strange bright yellow hair tinged with blue, "It only affects demons, no matter what their appearance or type, and we have heard many stories… and have seen many cases… of demons acting madly under their influence…"

"What happens to them?" It was Rayne who spoke out now, afraid of the own shiver she could hear in her voice.

"The church finds them, and the church wins. Every time." Kaori spoke softly, her tone ghostly and harsh in her own throat. Everyone in the room could taste her fear, and for a long moment Rayne felt herself wanting to run… wanting nothing more than to bury her head deep within her pillow and meet nothing more than her nightmares once again… happily losing herself in the horror of those golden eyes… Kin's suddenly dark, cryptic voice, tore into her conscious, knocking the breath out of her.

"They're coming."

xXx  
AN: Man... I have to apologize ahead of time for this next chapter, something horrible is going to happen and I swear I'm going to cry even writing it. I've been planning it for a few days though, and I really think it will help get things going in terms of story plot and main conflict, so yay there.

Anyway, I hope ya'll enjoyed this purely informational chapter. I will have the next chapter up sometime tonight, and I am planning on making it a rather long one! Yay!

Read, enjoy, share, and comment please!

~Chey


	17. Chapter 17

John could smell her, her scent rich and tainted. He could just barely feel the tree branches as his feet pushed off of them, moving his body faster and faster through the air until he finally came to the tiny town where her scent was the strongest. He had been sent off to kill a female fire demon, but Rayne quickly absorbed his priorities and as his bare feet found themselves on the soft asphalt of the road just outside of Raiden's house he could taste her. His pupils flex within the swirling pools of blue and red that are his irises as his eyes find Rayne just within the doorway, standing next to a man of barely five foot ten with bright blond hair painted with lightening blue.

John's image burns into Rayne's mind, a blurry struggle to recognize the man that has suddenly taken her breath away. He is taller by at least four inches, his body leaner and more delicate underneath his solid black outfit… the silver buttons up his long sleeved shirt left unbuttoned at his neck… She can barely make out the streaks of red in his pale blond hair, and is completely unable to see his strange new eyes. He takes a single step towards her, bare foot and struggled. The world around her is silent in anticipation as Raiden stands to her left, Kin moves to her right, and Sesshoumaru stands directly behind her. She can feel his protective heat against her back, and as a shudder runs through her spine John methodically pulls two swords from his back… their red tinted blades pulsating as he holds them at his side… the seals bleeding down his hands to wrap once again around the blades.

Sesshoumaru recognizes the two blades instantly, their power calling painfully out for their owner, Rayne can feel him step closer to her back… a sight that John clearly picks up on as he puts the blades out before him defensively, his lips drawn back in a silent snarl only the demons around her can hear. All three of the men around her tense up as well, the sound of Sesshoumaru's hands cracking as they tense sickening her as the entire situation finally falls into comprehension within her mind.

"…no… John… that's… I know him…" Her voice is soft, and for a long moment she fears she was not heard when Raiden finally speaks up, breaking the unbearable silence in the home.

"Then go talk to him. If you know him so well," Jealousy, Sesshoumaru could taste jealousy in Raiden's voice, "maybe you can get him to leave us be without a fight."

Rayne stumbles forward suddenly, her feet clunking unceremoniously on the wooden porch as she catches her balance. She steadies herself carefully, turning around to shoot a glance of acid towards the one who had shoved her ahead so ruthlessly. Raiden only shrugs unknowingly at her and waves his hands in a shooing motion. Kin grins at the younger man's actions while Sesshoumaru keeps his eyes locked, a painfully intense gaze, on John… and his swords. With a sharp intake of air she steadies herself, stands as straight as she can manage, and returns her eyes to John.

John can feel her gaze crawl over him pleasantly, his stomach and chest aching at the chance to touch her… to breathe her entirety into his lungs… to taste her against his mouth and press her dangerously to his body. Hesitatingly he takes another step forward, his stance relaxing as she walks methodically towards him, her eyes never wavering from his face.

The sight of him drops her stomach, the taste of bile once again on her tongue… This is not John, not the soft and gentle and intelligent John she had become so closed to over the past year. This was a parody of him, a sick joke God decided to play on her. Another disgusting twist in this horrific reality she wanted nothing to do with any longer. Finally she comes to stop before him, their bodies barely four feet apart. She could see the red swirling like liquid blood in his pale blue eyes, the eyes she had once found herself falling in love with… the red streaks in his hair darker at the roots and paling towards the ends of his pale blond hair… the pale blond hair she had often day dreamed about running her fingers through… She also noticed, queerly, that his hair was longer… her right arm tingling pleasantly at the thought of her fingers twisting through it… a painful sensation that brings burning to her dark brown eyes.

"Don't cry." His voice is deep, strange to her ears… the sound of John locked within an echo that was never him, and never would become him…

"You're… different…" He can hear the shake in her voice, the intense pain of it maddening.

"I had to change. I was not good enough before." Serious, so entirely serious and foreign. Her mind screamed at her, and she found herself taking another step… her hands wanting to find his flesh before he disappeared entirely from her.

"…but… why?" Rayne begged, wanting to hear something other than that it had been her fault. John was nothing more than a bastardized version of the older man she had so intensely admired… his eyes a mad characterture of the intelligence that had once swam in them.

It was John that closed the gap between them, his hands suddenly rough on her shoulders. The shock of it forced her dark brown eyes wide as they locked on his face. John's face stared back at her, wide and mad as he spoke incoherently at her.

"To kill them, Rayne. To kill all of them. Exactly as my lady commands."

His laughter pierced into her consciousness, and she was only mildly aware of her body being roughly pulled aside as a blast of air tore across her face… a single strand of hair falling to the ground where her feet had been as John finishes the slash of the blade held in his right hand in the air where she had been standing. Sesshoumaru holds Rayne closely, his eyes never leaving John's face as he lands gracefully to his feet behind him, Rayne held carefully in his left arm as his right hand begins to glow green. John follows the dog demon, his face splitting in madness as his laughter continues, and it is only the sudden grin in Sesshoumaru's eyes does he pause in his pre-lunge to attack the dog demon.

The blaze of fire is sudden, erupting John's black shirt in flames as Kaori runs towards him, both of her hands completely engulfed in fire as she throws ball after ball of living flame towards him. He dodges them easily, turning his attention towards Kaori with his two blades moving swiftly around the young woman his mind takes in easily as his target. The fire finishes devouring his black shirt, the smoldering ash falling away to expose his naked upper body… and the sight of him puts just enough disgust into Kaori that she hesitates for a split moment, the edge of his right blade slicing easily through her shoulder. Kaori quickly realizes her mistake, pushing heavily off the ground with both feet to skid to a stop on all fours a good ten feet away from him. She can feel the blood spilling from her torn left shoulder, and drops her focus on John to stare at the open wound which is refusing to heal as strange black characters bleed into her flesh and slowly crawls down upper arm. With horror dawning on her she watches the flame extinguish from her left hand, her arm growing unnaturally cold… almost as cold as the flesh of a human.

Kaori's distraction gives Sesshoumaru enough time to bring Rayne to the edge of the forest surrounding the four houses in the cul-de-sac, and as he lowers her to her feet she collapses weakly against him, her legs shaking uncontrollable.

"John…That's… Sesshoumaru… that's John!" Rayne screams at him, her voice hectic, and with a gentle shake he forces her to look at him, lowering himself just slightly so that he can stare into her eyes and she can stare back into his. His golden eyes soften as he watches her… aware of the tears that threaten to spill over… her appearance is pathetic, gentle in a way even Rin had been incapable of… though he acknowledged the fact that he had never been around Rin when she had been so close to losing someone of such importance.

"Stay here." His command was soft, and as she opened her mouth to protest he found his right index finger pressed against her lips. The heat from her body bloomed against him, and he was well aware of how his own breath hitched slightly at the scent her body gave off at his touch. "My brother was correct. You human females are too stubborn for your own good."

He could see Rayne's lips shiver at his words, threatening an almost smile as he lowered his finger from his place against her barely moist flesh. He stared at her, intensely with his golden eyes, until she finally gave a short nod and without wasting a moment he was gone from before her. Slowly she let herself sink to her knees in the cool slightly damp earth and grass, and she could just make out the fight as it unfolded before her… John… against her Sesshoumaru… the thought ached, both the way she had claimed Sesshoumaru… and the way she had dismissed John so easily with that single thought.

xXx

John was running towards Kaori as she explored her suddenly useless left arm, his blades held out to his sides in a motion that was prepared to finally eliminate his target when he heard bone cracking, followed by an intense pressure in his jaw that sent his body flying into the ground to his left, the asphalt cracking under the force as his body crushed limply into it. Kin stood where John had once been, his metallic eyes burning as he held his right fist firmly at his side… his skin glinting against the sunlight as the light began to crawl once again under the horizon.

"What in the hell did he do to you?" He turned his gaze to Kaori just as Sesshoumaru landed gracefully at his side, his own golden eyes watching John's lifeless body silently.

"I don't… I don't know!" Kaori's panic broke through Sesshoumaru's intensity, and he turned towards the young fire demon just as Raiden dropped himself to her side… and he noticed curiously that Raiden was moving his hands just above her flesh, as if he was terrified to touch her. He could also see a very slowly spreading collection of black Chinese characters that crawled onto her pale flesh. "My arm is human! Look!" She practically screamed at them, holding her left hand up to show off her completely empty fingers… while flames danced almost madly across her right hand and arm, threatening briefly to catch her hair in their swarm.

"I've seen those marking before." Sesshoumaru spoke up now, Kin dropping himself to Kaori's other side and placing a firm, calming hand on her right shoulder. He noticed her flames calmed down immediately at his touch, and couldn't help but smell the affection between the older demon and the younger fire demon.

"Of course you have, Lord Sesshoumaru." The barely recognizable voice of John echoed across the cul-de-sac as he pulled himself up from the ground. The three demons watched in awed horror as he stepped forward, the blades left forgotten at his feet, and the sight that had originally distracted Kaori finally became apparent to them. The same characters crawled over his skin, a living curse that threatened to consume the entirety of his pale flesh… they dug into him, drew blood, opened scars, made new wounds, and obsessively devoured every inch of exposed skin as they crawled maddeningly up his neck. They could also see the characters working frantically underneath his skin, large parasites that wrapped themselves around his bones, snapping them back into place as he took another step forward, violently cracking his neck to one side as his head fell sickly to the right side as he watched the three demons.

"You see, these seals were of the same breed that sealed you away." John's voice twisted even as he spoke, until only a barely noticeable shell of his former tone remained… what was left sound robotic, inhuman… unnatural. Whatever had been left of John was gone now, even his scent degrading into that of a rotting corpse as he stood before them. "These are the true power of the church. The power to remove what little advantage you disgusting creatures have over the true rulers of this world!"

John's laughter echoed once again around the cul-de-sac, the tone even more disgusting and wrong than his voice was, and as the scrolls worked their way up his face they could see blood beginning to drip from his lips. Whatever this 'true power' was, was destroying him even while he pretended to still be alive, and even Sesshoumaru could feel his stomach turn horrifically at the sight. Even Naraku hadn't been this… bastardized… this corrupt… and John was still nothing more than someone elses' puppet.

"John… please… don't…" Rayne's voice sunk into Sesshoumaru horribly, her gentle tone forcing his eyes to widen as he quickly turned around to see her walking between Kin and Kaori and himself, walking towards John with her arms down at her side, her palms up in a sign of surrender.

John's head snapped back up as his eyes fell on Rayne, and Sesshoumaru moved too slowly to pull her away from him as the puppet closed the distance between himself and the human girl once again. The two of them stood barely a foot apart, Sesshoumaru to Rayne's left by at least six feet with Kin, Kaori, and Raiden standing to her right by at least eight feet. Raiden was the only one who had seen John's disease before… and the way Rayne's large brown eyes stared at John he was sure she remembered the sight all too well…

"Forgive me…. Rayne…" John pulled his left hand back, the black of his nails glinting against the falling sunlight as his fingertips caught the light just perfectly. Rayne could see him moving in slow motion, memories assaulting her mind as she saw her father standing before her, his own hand raised in the same motion… John's eyes no longer his own as the blood red color finally overwhelmed the pale blue… and yet she needed to save him… she had to save him… because she couldn't live with knowing she never tried…

John's fingers came to meet her body in the center of her stomach, just under her rib cage, she could feel her old scar exploding in pain as his fingers easily burned through her floral blouse, and she could taste the familiar metallic flavor of her own blood in her mouth, a flavor that never came and only haunted her in memories of this exact moment with her father those five years ago… and John's body lit up in the exact same form her male parent's had done that night. The sight of electricity ripping through his flesh, busting, burning, and the smell exactly the same as it had been before… the scent of an exploded fuse box and a rotting animal, a rotting burning animal that smelled stronger and worse and more intense than any animal had before. She could see the familiar agony in John's red eyes, and she could feel her legs collapsing under her as Sesshoumaru's powerful arms once again locked her to his chest.

Raiden stood tall behind John, his left hand locked on the man's left shoulder as electricity tore through both of their bodies. Raiden's face was expressionless as he felt the explosion of pent up power flowing through his fingertips and palm, desperate to enter the new source and close the circuit in its endless search for the earth underneath the humanoid's feet. Raiden's lips spread in a morbid grin, his fangs exposed as his body growled beyond his control, the power intense and beautiful and terrible all at the same moment. He had to rip his hand from John's shoulder as Sesshoumaru, holding Rayne, and Kin, holding his younger sister, made it to the safety of the tree line just as four hunters closed in around them. John's melted and barely recognizable charred flesh clung horrifically to his hand, and when the connection was finally broken John collapsed heavily to his knees before him, Raiden wasting no time to join the others in the clearing. He was exhausted, and thankful for the strong presence of the others as he continued to watch the scene unfold in the cul-de-sac.

"He survived that, Kin, how in the hell did he survive?" Raiden's voice came out in pants, heavy and struggled, and the only response Kin could give him was a shrug and a head shake. No, he didn't know, no one could explain it… and even as they watched John was beginning to come to, the blackness of his charred flesh falling away to expose muscle and bone… a horrific sight they could see Sesshoumaru fighting with Rayne over… The dog demon was desperate to prevent Rayne from watching, and she fought with his every move as he tried to be too gentle with her, horrified at the smell of blood that was spilling from the fresh burn in her stomach. They all knew the wound was only superficial, Raiden having gotten involved too quickly for it to escalate, but Sesshoumaru and Raiden both knew of her reopened scar, and they both knew scar tissue would take even longer to heal over.

"Rayne, Rayne, calm down." Sesshoumaru was pleading with her, holding her back to the front of his body now as she continued to struggle. He had already refused the others help, she was clearly panicking and not in her normal state of mind and any interference would only make things worse. He had to wrap his arms around her middle, gentle as he could, to hold her still and keep her from running towards John, and as the four other humans landed around John he finally felt her go still, watching the scene as intensely as the other three were.

"Well, well, well… if it isn't pussy again…" Robert grins horrifically at the burned and falling apart John, his own pale blond hair and pale blond hair as immaculate as ever, and once again as he stands before John he runs his single white gloved hand through his hair.

"Pl…ple…Rob..rt…" John huffs out, his throat tearing even as he speaks, blood spilling from his mouth. Robert simply stares at him, the three identically dressed men around him saying nothing as Robert un-holsters a single silver pistol.

"It looks to me as if Lady Red's pet has gone rogue, doesn't it… men?" Robert's voice is dark, laced with acid and plotting and the three men, each wearing the same black suit with silver buttons as Robert… and as John once was… nodding to his question.

Robert's smile bursts across his face, and he drops himself to his knees before John… the pistol welcomingly cool against his blistered face…

Rayne watches the strange man push the gun to Robert's head, and Sesshoumaru locks his left hand around Rayne's mouth as she screams, a muffled and horrific sound that blisters through the silent forest. He doesn't understand the meaning of the weapon being pulled on the damaged man… but Rayne's reaction, and the way the other three advert their faces solemnly tell him something isn't right. These men are dressed too similar to John to not be on his side… it can't be… he was to be killed by Sesshoumaru's group, not… not his own fucking allies. Again, Rayne's body convulses in horror against his embrace.

The sound is sudden. Shocking. Robert pulls the trigger with no hesitation, the loud explosion of the gun even causing the other three men with him to jump noticeable at the unexpected sound of it. John's face explodes graphically against the asphalt as his body falls to the side, completely limp… entirely dead…

Rayne screams again, this time tears spilling over her checks and onto Sesshoumaru's left hand as he struggles to hold her. He can feel her screaming 'John' into his palm, over and over and over again, as if her very heart has shattered in her chest with the gun shot, and without turning to the other three he jumps into the tree tops, holding her tightly to himself as he runs off into the forest. All he knows is that he has to take her away. He has to get her away. He has to protect her. He has to make her un-see this horrific scene.

xXx

AN: T-T


	18. Chapter 18

Robert fell to his knees before the same throne John had once kneeled before. The beautiful blond woman narrowed her eyes at the human, the scent of her pet lacing him unpleasantly. She knew the news before he announced it, and she struggled against the anger it filled in her. John had been her greatest creation, the only human who had kept his own mind as long as he had.

"John is dead my lady." Robert's voice was unnaturally subdued as he spoke to the woman in white, her pale red eyes making his skin crawl under her gaze. He had never enjoyed being in her presence, and yet he also knew well enough to bite his own tongue and swallow his disgust to the best of his abilities.

"How?" Robert could barely perceive the hitch in her mystic voice, cold and foreign and wrong to his ears, but he kept his eyes to the ground and forced himself to keep his heart steady. He was not afraid of her, because he had no idea how easily she could kill him… and she preferred to keep it that way.

"My team and I found him near the target, and he turned on us." Robert had practiced this line, and the lie slipped easily from his lips. He could feel her gaze intensify on him, and when she finally dropped her gaze away from him his entire body relaxed in a sensation that shocked him. He hadn't been aware of how tense he had been.

"A shame. I quiet enjoyed him." She sighed heavily, a soft and unearthly sound, "What happened to his weapons?"

"They shattered, my lady." Not a lie. When Robert had debated bringing the swords back they had been nothing more than thin ragged, beaten pieces of worthless metal. He had no reason to assume they were still viable weapons, for he had never witnessed the Tessaiga's ability to transform from a worthless blade to a weapon of great power.

She inwardly cursed at herself as the news penetrated her mind. The swords had handled the seal well enough at first, perhaps strengthened against their destructive force by their own demon origin, but she hadn't expected John to survive the seals finally overtaking their original host. It was a far greater shame to have lost the young man than she originally assumed.

"Go inform his father of his passing. Do not tell him he lost his mind in the end, he doesn't need those details." Robert looked up to catch her gaze, a strange sadness he had never seen on the woman's normally cold face.

"What shall his cause of death be, my Lady?"

"Was the female fire demon successfully extinguished?"

"Yes, my Lady." Robert kept his eyes locked with her, another well practiced lie slipping easily from his lips. He grinned inwardly, praising himself, as she nodded in response, pleased with her army.

"Tell his father that he died and took her to hell with him." A grin slipped onto her lips, a strange and horrific sight that locked around Robert's chest… a feeling of being dragged under water, buried alive… she could see his eyes widening at it, and the grin only widened, "Word it… prettier…"

"Yes, my Lady." He spoke without speaking, the words slipping from his mouth no longer his own… and he could feel those pale red eyes devour him, and he would adore them… he would die for them… he would obey them, endlessly, and as he lowered his forehead to the ground in a final bow he felt his mind slip away as she wormed her way inside of him… consuming him, claiming him as her own… owning him entirely. When Robert looked back up at her as he stood she was pleased to see the independence wiped from his eyes, his smug expression had always irritated her. No one else would notice a thing. He looked no different than any human man after losing a close friend to the war, exactly as she needed him to look. She knew the truth… and she could feel his essence mold in her fingers as she watched him walk away from the large room. Humans were all so easy. Pathetically so. Especially those that deemed themselves all too powerful.

xXx

Rayne felt her body collapse onto the soft grass before she was aware of having been moved at all. Her mind was screaming, her heart threatening to burst in her chest from the agony of it all. John was dead. Her mind cried out, a blistered sound escaped from her lips, and she was screaming again. Sesshoumaru stood next to her, watching her body convulse as she laid on her side in the grass. The horror of it all was agonizing. For once he felt no disgust towards the horrifically human sight he was witnessing before him. He felt disgust, a bottomless pit of it pulling in his stomach and quickly threatening to overwhelm him, but not at her. What he felt towards her was wrong, more powerful than he had ever managed to drag out of the hole that was his heart for Rin. He had never seen Rin fall apart, had never seen her pushed so far… and had never seen her body caked so completely in scars. It took lifetimes to finally push her to her breaking point, and he could see Rayne threatening to never step back from that cliff.

"Rayne." His voice was shockingly steady against the madness of her own mind, the baritone sound wrapping pleasantly around her so efficiently with just a single word… her own name silencing the screams long enough for him to taste the unnatural stillness of the forest around them. The sun was finally setting, long shadows being thrown across the forest floor.

He stared at her, his bottom lip shivering slightly as he lowered himself to kneel before her, all of his weight balanced on the pads of his feet. She relaxed further as his presence came close enough for her to feel, and he watched her emotionlessly as she pushed herself to a sitting position, resting on the side of her legs with the majority of her body weight held up by her hands. He watched her hands silently, watching her delicate fingers flex against the fresh dirt, tearing up grass to expose the earth beneath it. She was still panicking, silent but he could see her mind racing uncomfortably.

"Rayne. You're safe." His words dragged her eyes to his face, and his heart ached at the sight that stared back at him. Her dark brown eyes were wide, lost and searching his face for something he couldn't give her, the stain of tears thick as new pools continued to flow uncontrollably down her soaked, red cheeks. She looked helpless, lost, confused… and he was searching his emotions for a list of opinion that never came. He was looking at her, anticipating a disgust at her blatant show of emotion or how her face ran wet or the unbearably salty scent that radiated from her… and he felt none of them. He wanted to throw his arms around her. He wanted to destroy her pain. He wanted to know she would break down like this if he had died. He wanted to know that Rin had felt this comfortable around him, and was terrified at the knowledge that she never had. That he had been so extremely collected around her that she had never truly been able to just be.

"… but… John…" The acknowledgement once again of his name brought her sobs back. She let her body collapse forward as she cried, shocked at the sudden warmth that enveloped her instead of the expected hardness of the ground. Sesshoumaru had moved forward easily, catching her in his arms and pulling her against his chest. He held her tightly, his arms locked protecting against her as she cried into his shoulder. He could feel the damp spreading, and buried his face against her dark brown hair. The scent of her was intoxicating, the feeling of her being so close overwhelming. He let her sob, saying nothing, his body trying its best to comfort her to the best of his ability, the only way he knew how.

xXx

Kaori sank down to sit on a fallen tree trunk. The markings on her left shoulder had receded shortly after John had been killed, whatever curse he had given her through the sword cut having died along with him. However the wound was still open, the blood congealing and scabbing over in the way a human's flesh would. Kin dropped himself to a knee in front of her, his right hand gently holding her left hand as he examined the wound. Her hand was cold against his, the first time he had ever felt her flesh this cool and normal… he was used to the blaze she constantly burned, and the way his eyes narrowed and lips pursed left her stomach dropping.

"How bad is it?" Raiden was turning away from the sparsely filled foliage that separated the three of them from where Rayne and Sesshoumaru were silently huddled together in a clearing easily twenty feet away from them. Raiden's voice was unnaturally harsh as he turned to the other two, Kaori glancing up at him with confusion swimming in her pale red eyes, a gaze which Raiden refused to meet. Something was bothering him, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was the way the dog demon had decided to comfort the human female.

"Her arm… it's almost as if whatever that spell was turned it human." Kin sighed heavily, letting Kaori's hand go reluctantly as he stood up to turn towards Raiden. He made no move to show Kaori that he had recognized the strange jealousy that tinged the younger demon's voice, and his face was strangely drawn and serious, even for him.

"Can you light it up yet, or has the flame completely disappeared from that arm?" Raiden's tone softened only slightly, his eyes on Kaori's arm as she clutched it like a child to her chest.

"No, nothing. It even feels cold, Raiden…" Kaori was scared by the sound of her own voice, and quickly dropped her eyes to her feet.

Kin's right hand was gentle and firm against her chin, and he slowly forced her to look up at him, his silver eyes burning at her. She had only briefly noticed that Raiden had turned his back to them, and a mild tingle of irritation slipped into her stomach before Kin forced her attention back to himself again.

"You will be fine. I promise." His words were slow, deliberate, tasting each syllable as he spoke it, and as a blush crawled into Kaori's burning face he released her chin and turned towards Raiden, well aware that the younger man was refusing to watch his affections towards his younger sister. "We should head north."

"The northern dogs won't appreciate us encroaching on their territory." Raiden spoke without turning around, speaking into the empty forest beyond them.

"They won't attack us as long as we have the Lord of the West with us." Kin responded, his voice firm with reason.

"You really think that's who that man is?" It was Kaori that spoke now, her voice laced with awe. She had only ever heard stories of the Western Lord. He was the last Ancient Demon, a demon that had been sealed away by the church after they had repeatedly failed to destroy him as they did the others.

"Why else would the church seem so desperate to hunt him down? I had only heard rumors that… something… had happened." Kin spoke softly, his own tone lost in a strange sense of admiration. He was thankful the dog demon had been so willing to listen to reason when he had been so close to killing Kaori… Kin knew he wouldn't have won that fight.

"Then why in the hell are we suddenly supposed to get involved? Let him be on his way and get his own ass killed." Raiden's tone was harsh, childish in his sudden disgust for the dog demon.

"Raiden…" Kaori began, Kin cutting her off with his stern tone.

"We have no choice in the matter. The church will send more hunters after us, and without that dog demon we stand no chance." Kin's eyes were harsh, Raiden could feel his gaze burning through his back even without looking at him. He knew he had lost the argument even before they had begun.

"But why do you have to head north? Their kind despises us elementals. Would we not be better off heading to the east, towards others of our own kind?" Kaori's voice was soft, even to her own ears, the sense of impending danger deep within her bones, a strange sensation she couldn't name.

"They are the last surviving descendants of the ancient demons. I feel like we made need them." Kin turned back towards Kaori now, a strange look of determination in his strong silver eyes, "We'll plan on heading east afterwards."

"You seriously think we should make a habit of visiting every single North American kingdom?" Raiden was speaking now, his tone the comforting playful tone the other two so adored of him. He had turned to face the two now, a grin on his lips. Whatever had been bothering him before he had finally swallowed. Raiden, however, still felt the burn of it deep within his gut… and the last thing he felt his sister and her friend deserved to know was how he truly felt.

"No, Raiden. I know we should. I sense a war coming." Kin's words bleed the grin off of Raiden's face, "And I can't shake the feeling that our new dog friend has everything to do with it."

xXx

Lady Red moved slowly through the hallway, her steps unnaturally light and delicate. The precision of her movements were admirable, her long blond hair blowing sensually behind her as she moved into the darkness of her war room. Swiftly, easily, she lit four candles around the damp dungeon walls and turned her attention to the single table in the middle of the small room. Spread out on the table, pinned back by large rusty nails, was a map of North America.

With her hands placed firmly against the top of the table on either side of her she leaned over the map, studying its contents with a dark amusement over her face. She had marked three clear borders within the continent. The Northern Kingdom in the northern most tip of North America, going only as far south as the very tips of the southern most states and spreading entirely through Canada. The Eastern Kingdom only going as far west as Mississippi but spreading entirely up the eastern cost, stopping just short of Maine. The Western tribes, spread unevenly across the wild west of demonic expansion. Only the Northern Kingdom and the Eastern Kingdom had the man power and hierarchy to stand against her church, and yet they still knew better than to make themselves known to the humans that lived in the area. That was contact forbidden by their many, widely varying treaties.

"It has been centuries since our last conflict…" She whispered softly to herself, her voice rich with acid… "Where are you… Lord of the West…?"

xXx

AN: Woo, try to slow things down again after the craziness that was the last chapter. You can look forward to some slow story telling, plot explaining, and I can't wait until we get to the Northern Kingdom and you get to meet a young man who is a distant relative of Sesshoumaru! Yay! We also finally get back to figuring out why Malik and the dog demons wanted to bring Sesshoumaru back in the first place. So lots of plot tying in and continuation, yay!

Also: Happy pi day everyone! =D I'm going out with some friends to celebrate (because we're fucking weird like that :p) and when I get home tonight I'll start on the next chapter!

Read, comment, rate, review, and let me know about it!  
~Chey


	19. Chapter 19

She could feel the soft rise and fall of his chest against her back, her hands tangled in the softness of his mokomoko-sama as he held her in his lap. He was leaning against a tree, her body in between his legs, his head leaned back against the tree as he watched the shadows of the forest playing against the ground. His entirety had been absorbed by her scent, and he found himself letting his golden eyes slip closed as she gently stroked his mokomoko-sama, which he had allowed her to wrap around her waist and loosely twist around her arms. She had shivered, a slight human notice of cold, and without his traditional kimono he had no way to warm her besides his fur.

"Sesshoumaru…?" Rayne's voice is soft, teasing him with the strange gentle tone he was barely beginning to become accustomed to. The young fire demon had checked on them once since they left the group, letting them know they had agreed to set camp up here for the night and were planning on heading out with the sun rise. He hadn't asked her where they were planning on going, but had nodded in a way that told her to leave them be, and the young fire demon had obeyed appropriately. It had taken Sesshoumaru hours to calm Rayne down enough to settle her sobs, and they had been pressed together like this, her back against his chest, for the last two hours.

"Hmmm?" He grunted in response, a tired and emotionally drained sound that felt weak. A fact that disgusted and amused him… he was too weak to fight against his growing affections for her. This strange woman, so clearly not his Rin and yet so clearly something more. As if Rin had been forced to grow up and mature and face her own demons alone… a stronger woman that had never learned to be reliant on him. He didn't doubt that Rin would have matured into a beautiful strong woman had he given her the chance to truly exist without his constant hovering, even when she had been left at Kaede's village… but Rin was no longer here… and Rayne was snuggled up against his lab and chest, a pleasant sensation.

"Did you ever lose someone…?" Sesshoumaru couldn't help the dark chuckle in his throat, a reaction that quickly had Rayne rephrasing her question, "No, no, I mean besides Rin… did you ever see someone die, besides Rin?" Her voice darkened as her question finished, and they sat in silence for a long while as Sesshoumaru thought over her inquiry and how to best answer it. She had just accepted his desire to not answer her when he spoke up, his baritone voice continuing to do horrible things to her body.

"I have seen many die. I have seen many more die by my own hand." He went silent again, more aware of the way her body tensed against him than she was, "…but I have only witnessed two I cared about die."

"Two? One more besides Rin?"

"Yes."

Silence fell between them again, and he could feel her nervous playing with his mokomoko-sama… the teasing way her fingers gently twisted and ran through his silver white fur. It was Rayne who spoke up again, and he felt her suck in air, hold it, and release it slowly as she struggled with her words.

"May I know their name?"

Her question shocked him for a reason he couldn't even begin to comprehend. He knew it had something to do with the fact she even cared, that she even wanted to know at all… that she was so unnervingly, beautifully comfortable with him.

"Why?" His question was short, and he could feel the extremely human sense of rejection sink into her. "I will answer your question, just tell me why you care." Her body relaxed slightly at his reassurance, despite the fact his tone remained deep and expressionless besides the subtle tones very few had been able to read… he didn't doubt, however, that she was one of the few even from the moment of her birth.

Again her body shivered pleasantly against him as she fought with the question and whatever answer she would give to him. He expected nothing more than a childish 'because I do', and when she began to speak he could feel himself falling, uncomfortable, into a state he had never even allowed around Rin. The one time he had tried, the one time he had been aware of his growing feelings towards Rin he had locked himself away… it was that moment when he realized for the first time his lands were not being attacked by rogue demons but by an army with an actual goal… and he had sent her away… he feared for her… and that was his weakness…

"I… I honestly don't know… I saw you… you know? In my dreams… watching me… I could see your eyes… I could feel them… they terrified me, because I didn't understand them… and they terrified me because I knew I should. I should understand them…" Rayne froze, and he could taste her nervousness… slowly, without comprehension, he lowered his face to her neck, breathing gently against her. The warmth of his breath crawled into her, foreign and delicious and intoxicating, and he felt her shiver in a decidedly erotic manner against him.

"…continue…" He whispered to her, letting his lips drag across the bareness of her flesh, the fold of her hair against his face unbearably soft, before he pulled away once again, pleased with the way her body reacted to his touch. So much like Rin, and yet nothing like her at all. More vulnerable, and yet undeniably stronger.

"I… I…" She stuttered, biting hard on her bottom lip, the scent of her blood wafting almost imperceptibly to his nose. He could taste the heat of her blush, her entire body warming against him just barely noticeable, and he watched her shoulders rise and fall with the sharp intake of cool night air she used to calm her nerves again. How quickly she regained control of herself impressed him, and once again he found himself lost in curiosity towards this beautiful creature sitting against his body. "I knew your eyes, and couldn't figure out how I knew them and that scared me. Your… beautiful golden eyes… I remember the first time I… Rin… I thank… saw you… lying in a forest… looking worse than death… and I remember being amazed by your beauty and wanting… needing… to save you. I needed it for myself… and I don't understand any of it."

He watched her head slump forward, her words swimming in his mind. Inuyasha's mate had never made any mention of having memories of her life as Kikyo. He watched Rayne push her hands through her dark brown hair, her fingers lacing her strands instead of his fur. She was holding her head, her face locked within her palms, and he watched her forcefully suck in air… her method of calming herself. She almost looked to be in pain, and he almost instantly wished he hadn't asked her a question… he had expected a simple, childish… Rin… answer… and she wasn't Rin…

"I lived my own life. I experienced my own shit. I dealt with it, and made friends, and grew up. I moved out, and finished school and started a career. I worked with John. I fell in love with John!" She is laughing into her palms now, a hectic, pained sound that tears at Sesshoumaru. Gently, he lets his right hand fall on her upper right arm, his touch instantly calming her as his warmth spreads through her flesh.

"…and now none of that matters… because of whoever I was previously…" Her voice softened noticeable, and he could just make out the shiver of a swallowed sob, "…I feel foreign in my own body… and when I look at you… you remind me of that… and yet I want to stay. I feel as if I have no choice, that I wouldn't be able to leave even if my mind convinced my body it was the right decision."

Silence falls on them again, and she slowly lowers her hands from her face, returning her grip to his mokomoko-sama around her stomach and chest. Her hands are gentle, but firm, as if afraid he might slip away from her.

"You are not Rin." He spoke slowly, cautiously tasting each word as he spoke it, and he felt her body slump against his chest, a painfully sense of defeat radiating from her body.

"…no… I am not… and I feel as if that's how I know you… but when I think about it, when I try to recall memories or understand the strange intuitions I feel pulling at my gut when you speak a certain way, or your eyes tense a certain way… when I try to figure out why I know those things… there is nothing there… I don't know how I know you, or even what I know about you… and I want to know. I need to know… and so I'll ask questions… because I want to know, for myself… I want to know you in a way that matches the way I feel I know you… but… better… somehow…" Rayne trailed off entirely now, and the way she let the silence linger without her nervous twitching or breathing told Sesshoumaru she had finally finished answering his question.

"Thank you, Rayne." The way his words fell on her, the way he was trying to express to her that he was not only pleased with her answer… but also… almost thankful that she was not Rin, but Rayne… an entirely new incarnation of a woman he had tried so desperately to love but had failed to in the end… he could feel a renewed sense of interest, a strange spark only given to a man granted a second chance… and yet he still knew that this was his first chance. It felt new, and foreign, and familiar, and beautiful, and he couldn't wrap his mind around any single emotion at all… he felt comfort, and that was good enough for now… he also felt suddenly lonely… the weight of the length of his self-imposed exile from company of equal standing to him and the weight of the lifetimes he spent locked away in the blackness of hell suddenly burning into him. Rayne's body warmed pleasantly as he wrapped his arms around her, letting his hands settle on the flesh of her stomach. She shuddered, the sharp intake of breath crawling through his skin as he lowered his head slightly closer to her shoulder.

"Kagura." His voice was barely above a whisper, his breathe hot against the flesh of her shoulder and neck.

"…Kagura?" Her own words shivered, her entire body on fire from his touch… the feeling in her stomach foreign and uncomfortable and delicious all at once. Even John had been unable to jumble her nerves like this… she let her eyes close against Sesshoumaru's touch, leaning back slightly against his chest as his arms tightened protectively around her.

"The first person I watched died… that I cared about." He let his own deep breath escape from his lips as he took in her scent, mentally exploring every aspect of her existence as he let his own eyes close. He would lose himself in her, and he was afraid of how comfortable it felt.

"…I'm sorry…" Rayne's words were hushed, and Sesshoumaru was only aware of her leaning her head back against his shoulder… exposing her pale bare neck to him. He could smell the gentle pulse of blood that raced just under her fragile flesh, and as he lowered his lips to her he felt her body hitch… a barely audible murmur escape her own lips as the warmth of his mouth found her neck. She tasted delicate, sweet, the faint flavor of vanilla exploding onto his tongue as he teasing brushed it against her flesh, her body aching painfully against his chest.

"We have food ready that is if you want to enjoy something that may satisfy you more so than a virgin body." Raiden's tone was harsh, erupting through both Sesshoumaru and Rayne's consciousness. Sesshoumaru broke away quickly from her, his eyes locked on the intruder he had foolish allowed himself to become too comfortable to sense coming in the first place, and Rayne was vaguely aware of how his hands tensed against the flesh of her stomach before he finally pulled away from her, helping her up as he stood.

Rayne refused to look at either demon, her face flushed such a bright red she looked to be sun burnt, and she pushed roughly past Raiden to join Kaori and Kin by their small campfire. Sesshoumaru, however, stood completely still, his hands balled into fists at his side as his golden eyes burrowed into Raiden's face. The dog demon looked completely irate, a soft growl vibrating deeply within his chest. Raiden, however, foolishly stepped closer to him, daring the male to make the first strike. Sesshoumaru knew better, the images of John's electrocution still fresh in his mind, and allowed his growl to slip past his lips, exposing his fangs.

"Listen, dog…" Raiden spoke quietly, and Sesshoumaru knew he was trying to keep the others from overhearing their conversation, "…you hurt a single hair on her body… take a single step out of line…" Raiden brought his left hand up his face, palm away from Sesshoumaru, and curled his fingers slowly… they could both feel the sparks that curled from his fingers before being absorbed back into his body, "…and I will put a thousand voltages into your heart…" Sesshoumaru could see the jealousy bleeding through Raiden's eyes, and with a daring grin he closed the gap between them… their bodies less than an arm's length away.

Sesshoumaru spoke softly, an icy calmness to his words that couldn't do anything except make Raiden's stomach stiffen. No matter how many threats he made, no matter how many fits he threw… he knew as well as Kin that he was no match for the Western Lord…

"I will kill you long before I hurt her."

xXx

AN: Yay, first serious Sesshoumaru/Rayne interaction. Happy days, but man... fucking cockblock that Raiden is, but that's okay because I want their relationship to move slowly. In fact, I feel like I have to throw this warning in here before it happens, and I may throw a warning up in the beginning of the chapter as well but: There will be a boy/boy scene coming up sometime soon. I will try to write it in a way where the scene/chapter still makes sense even if you would prefer to skip over it, but it will be in there because I feel like it leads to some important character development.

So, there you go, hope ya'll enjoyed it!

Please share, follow, favorite, and comment!

~Chey


	20. Chapter 20

Kaori watched Rayne drop in front of the small campfire, her legs curled under her bottom as she snuggled wearily into the grass. She could see the blush on the young woman's face, the way her eyes swam and the still racing beat of her heart all too apparent for her own good.

"Kin managed to kill a handful of squirrels… if you're feeling hungry…" Kaori spoke softly, speaking a little too loudly as if she wasn't aware of the human hearing capabilities.

"I'm not hungry." Rayne answered, short and slightly too harsh, as she wrapped her arms around her body. Kaori glanced up at Kin, who was standing on the other side of Rayne, and shrugged. Kin, however, was glaring towards Raiden as he stepped back into the clearing.

"The dog ran off, something about hunting for himself." Raiden shrugged, a playful grin on his lips that quickly vanished as Rayne turned towards him, her body tense and the blush furious.

"You had no right to barge in on us like that!" Kaori had to bring a hand to her mouth to cover the grin that Rayne's sudden explosion dragged onto her lips. Kin, however, remained locked on Raiden.

Raiden, for his part, froze and stared back at Rayne. His eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted as if he was shocked by her accusation.

"Barge in? I was only offering my services like you so rudely demanded of me." Raiden's voice had dropped, aghast at Rayne's anger.

"Oh hey, that reminds me. How did you two know each other?" Kaori spoke up now, her voice light and charming. Kin shot her a look that told her to stay out of it, but her pale red eyes were locked on her brother, "You've refused to explain the entire situation to us, older brother."

"Why in the hell did I never know you had a sister!?" Rayne's voice was on the edge of hysterics again, "We were friends from the time I was a child, how did you hide this from me!?"

"Ohhhh," Kaori drawled, her lips spreading in a wider grin as she locked eyes on her brother, "This is that human girl you kept going on about?"

"You told her about ME!?" Rayne practically screamed at Raiden, who threw his hands up in defense.

"Everyone, just calm down!" Raiden hissed back, his hands shaking slightly before him. Both Rayne and Kaori were glaring hard at him now, each of their eyes accusing him of a different fault. Kin, however, kept his silver eyes locked on Kaori, desperate to get her to stay out of it.

"You were… interesting…" Raiden struggled with the words, regretting his decision instantly as Rayne rose awkwardly to her feet and turned her entire body to face his. She was only a few inches taller than he remembered, her five foot two growing to a steady five foot four over the last five years.

"Interesting?" Rayne mocked him, failing horribly at imitating the way he drawled out the word as if he was confused by it. From her left side Kaori let out a soft 'ooooohhh' of provocation, Kin finally dropping his gaze with a sigh as he gave up keeping the younger girl out of the fight.

"No… well… yes… but not bad, a good interesting." Raiden chuckled nervously as Rayne took a step towards him, her scent assaulting him with the warmth of the camp fire behind her. Her body glowed, angelic and demonic and horrible all at once with the light of the flame behind her.

"So, what, I was just some social experiment for you?" Rayne accused, her tone hurt.

"What, no! What in the hell is your excuse, coming back here after being gone for five fucking years!?" Raiden finally shouted back at her, her accusation of his intentions finally striking him where it hurt, where it was still sore even after all these years.

"You expected me to stay after you killed my father!?" Rayne hissed at him, tears burning her eyes. Again, Kaori made a surprised face towards Kin, who flicked a pebble sized chunk of metal at her.

"What was I supposed to do!? Let him kill you!?" Raiden screamed back at her now, his voice laced with a disgust and fury even Kaori had never heard from her, and as she listened to her brother scream at the human girl the mock expression of surprise melted from her face and she found herself starting at her older brother. Kin had turned to face Raiden as well, his own expression cold and thoughtful. Rayne, however, in her own brand of stubbornness, took another step towards the irate demon.

"Yes! God yes, Raiden! You SHOULD have let him kill me!" Rayne screamed back, tone matched for tone, and Raiden recoiled as if he had been slapped by her, shocked by her admission. The group went silent as she pulled her bloody shirt from her stomach, exposing the scar to Raiden. His face went pale at the sight of it, blistered into her skin in the center of her stomach, just under her ribcage, covered in a fresh layer of blood from John's attack… but under the blood he could see it clearly… the stab mark in the very center and the lines, the web, of crawling jaded edges that spread out… the mark of an electricity burn… He felt his stomach drop, and for the first time wanted to scream and tear into himself… he was disgusted, and furious…

Kaori watched her older brother's face pale, her eyes widening as she leaned over to follow his eyes to Rayne's exposed stomach. She knew the scar pattern well, and knew exactly what Raiden thought of it… and exactly where they had come from.

"Oh my god… Raiden… what happened?" Kaori was frightened by the sound of her own voice, all mocking playfulness at her brother's expense washed away and replaced by a deep mourning. She had always known what he powered meant for his existence… but she had never seen him admit suffering from it…

"My best friend, the human male I grew up with, electrocuted my father to death by simply touching him and it burned! Do you have any idea what was running through my mind after you left me for dead, after you turned into… that… thing..." Rayne let her shirt drop back to her stomach, her eyes jumping around Raiden's face.

"A monster, Rayne. I'm a fucking monster." Raiden's voice tasted far off even to himself, his words foreign to his lips, as if it were someone else standing in his body accusing him of the horrific things he knew he had done. "I saved her, Kaori, because I couldn't stand the thought of being without you, Rayne…"

"Then why did you never tell her? Why did you pose as a human? Why did you just leave her?" Kaori was shocked by the forcefulness of her own voice, the undertone of disgust she couldn't hide from her own voice. Raiden had always been aloof, had always been the guy who would rather laugh things off than deal with them when they needed to be handled, and to her this was just his typical behavior. Leave a young human girl to die without even explaining to her the truth after deliberately lying to her for years.

Raiden turned on his sister violently, closing the gap between them too fast for Rayne's human eyes to follow. "Why? Why!? You DARE to ask me why when you've known of this fucking curse my entire life!?" He screamed at her, Rayne turning just in time to see Kin coming to Raiden's side. "I was falling in love with a girl I knew I could never even TOUCH!"

Raiden's hand was moving to strike his sister even before the word 'touch' slipped from his mouth, and the sound of skin slapping against skin was the only indication to Rayne that anything had even happened. The next sight her eyes caught was Raiden standing before his sister, his right arm bent at the elbow and held just before his face. Wrapped tightly around the young male's wrist was Kin's right hand… his palm and fingers pressed entirely to Raiden's bare flesh.

The warmth of Raiden's flesh was sharper than Kaori's, tiny pinpricks of blazing heat that teased against Kin's hand and arm. Raiden was staring up at the older man with wide eyes, his pale red eyes locked with the beautiful silver of Kin's. Kin's hand, in stark contrast to Raiden's, was refreshingly cool… and for the first time he was aware of the intense pain his body had always felt as the electricity fought within him. Even Kaori found herself staring in shock at the contact between the two males… Raiden had always been unable to touch another living creature… even other electric demons couldn't handle the intense voltage blazing inside of his body… and here Kin was touching him, the audible sound of popping electricity burning through the air at the location of their contact, without a single noticeable reaction.

"…how can you…?" Raiden mouthed, barely audible, a breathless whisper.

"Metal conducts electricity." Sesshoumaru's deep baritone voice washed over the campsite, and Rayne turned to watch him as he dropped a headless deer corpse at his feet, a beautifully gently curved katana held in his right hand while a second katana was tied crudely with torn cloth to his waist, the cloth laced into the belt loops of his jeans. His golden eyes hovered briefly over Rayne before turning his full attention to the two male demons who were still touching.

"uh… no… he's correct," Rayne spoke up softly, a blush crawling over her face at the thought of Sesshoumaru witnessing her earlier argument with the young male demon, "Metal does conduct electricity. Kin isn't being hurt by the electricity because it can travel through his body without doing damage… the electrons basically accept the high energy without breaking at the atomic level…"

"…interesting…" Kin released Raiden's wrist slowly, the strange pleasant tingling leaving his fingers slowly. Raiden examined his own wrist, the absence of Kin's strange coolness heavy in his chest.

"Her father used a blade?" Sesshoumaru kept his eyes locked on Raiden, who slowly dragged his attention away from his wrist to look at the dog demon. Sesshoumaru could see his mind struggling to put the pieces together of his question, and with a tone completely identical to his almost bored tone he added, "When he attacked Rayne."

Dawning lit on Raiden's face, followed by a deep sadness barely noticeable except for in his pale red eyes, "…yes, actually… but so what?"

"She was electrocuted because of that, nothing more." Sesshoumaru's tone was final, and as the sentence hung in the air, a strange forgiveness that left Raiden feeling numb, he dropped himself slowly to Rayne's side, "I brought real food."

Kaori jumped to her feet, eager to lessen the tension that hung in the air, and to ignore the mental cursing she could see on Rayne's face at the knowledge that Sesshoumaru had heard at least the most important part of their argument from earlier, and moved swiftly over to the deer, "Oh thank god. That squirrel tasted like shit."

Raiden remained silent as his sister worked on cooking the large, already cutted by Sesshoumaru, animal. He left his pale red eyes on Kin, his mind racing at the potential being allowed to touch a living person brought to his existence… Kin, however, watched Kaori… a strange sadness etched in the shadows of his face… Deep inside, he was already asking for forgiveness… and Raiden felt chills crawl up his spine as Kin's hand found his in the darkness.

xXx

AN: Holy cow, we're already up to chapter 20. How freaking cool is that? I hope the pacing is still working for everyone, and that no one is bored by my myriad of side character development. Though it made me think of a question: How soon do you want the lemon scenes, and do you even care if I develop relationships between the side characters at all? How quickly/slowly do you want Sesshoumaru's relationship with Rayne to develop? I was planning their first sex scene for when they are in the Northern Kingdom, but if that's too fast/slow for anyone I can surely adjust.

I guess I'm just looking for feedback, after all I want to make sure all of my readers are still enjoying this journey!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Please comment and let me know what you think!

~Chey


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